Home Again
by Ooshka
Summary: AH/OOC Next story in the series that started with Homestay. Follows on from Homecoming. Jason comes to stay and Sookie rediscovers her inner Kiwi chick.
1. Chapter 1

**A/N So I'm back, although I wasn't exactly gone for long, was I? Well I tried to do some housework, but the laundry-folding turned into me having a tussle with the baby over a sock, and, honestly, it's easier to write about stuff than do it! So here goes. New story. **

**It's now June, so we've moved on about four months from Homecoming.**

**Disclaimer: Not mine.**

EPOV

The first indication that something was up was the huge fucking truck parked in the driveway, preventing me getting my car in there. That was fucking annoying.

Then I saw the muddy boots left at the front door, and, as I stepped inside, heard a loud male voice with a fucking thick Kiwi accent say "It fuckin' sucks, eh?" That was the second indication.

But the third indication that I'd slipped into some kind of weird fucking alternative universe was when I heard Sookie say "It fuckin' sucks _balls_ is what it does, Jase!" When the fuck did Sookie start talking like that?

I might have been tempted to go back out the door and check that I'd come to the right house, but Amelia appeared in the hallway and yelled "Uncle Jase is here, Eric!" before running off, so I guessed I was in the right place. And I also remembered that Sookie's brother was visiting. Well this should be fucking fun.

I walked in to the family room to find Sookie in the kitchen and some guy sitting at the breakfast bar. "Eric!" Sookie called. "You're here. Great. Come and meet Jason."

Jason turned around. I could kind of see the resemblance to Sookie. I went over to shake his hand and he just gaped at me like a fucking idiot.

"Wow, you're fuckin' tall, eh? Sooks, you didn't say he was that tall."

"Yeah, that's because that isn't the most interesting thing about him Jason. God, you're a dick sometimes."

Jason didn't say anything, he just sniggered. I wasn't sure what to say, he was kind of a dick. But I didn't think me agreeing with Sookie was going to win me any points. So in the end I just said "I'm going to get changed" and I headed off to the bedroom so I could get out of my fucking suit.

When I got back to the kitchen the kids were hanging around 'Uncle Jase' who was telling them some story about cows. Sounded fucking riveting.

Felicia trotted over to me clutching Sockie and held her arms up so I could pick her up. "Dard, dad, dad, dad" she said. She was getting better at saying dad, but it still sometimes came out dard.

I lifted her up she poked me in the cheek with Sockie, giggling as she did it. Sockie was wet and disgusting as usual, from where it had been sucked. I started to walk into the kitchen with her, but tripped over Bob who'd come in for dinner. "Fuck" I muttered under my breath.

"Yep. Fuckin' cats, eh" Jason commented. Sookie turned around from the stove and fixed us both with a glare. "No more swearing, you two! Alright?"

I nodded. I didn't really fucking want to be lumped in with Jason, but there was no getting around it. I put Felicia down and she immediately went after Bob, which got rid of that problem, and I went to give Sookie a kiss.

Sookie stopped what she was doing to put her arms around my neck and return the kiss, which would have been great. Except that fucking Jason decided to wolf-whistle. Sookie turned and glared at him again. "Honestly, Jason! Grow up" Sookie said.

Jason just pulled a face. "Yeah, you're not fuckin' Mum, Sook. Lighten up. And I'll have another beer, while you're in there, eh." I waited for Sookie to tell Jason to get his own fucking beer, but instead she stepped towards the fridge. I was closer however so I got there first, got one out and handed it to Jason, who said "Thanks, mate" before opening it.

"So, you're here until Sunday?" I asked. It was Friday. We could cope for two nights. Probably. There was a slight chance I might fucking punch him, but I really hoped for Sookie's sake it didn't come to that. After all, he was her only relative from what I could gather. Apart from the kids. And me. Yeah, she probably didn't need him that much.

"Yep. Gotta drive back Sunday morning. It's a fuckin' long way, eh? Wasn't so bad getting here from Mystery Creek though. State Highway 1's a lot better than it used to be."

"How was Fielddays?" Sookie asked.

"Pretty good. I bought a new ute. Should be ready to pick up in a couple of weeks."

"Why'd you need a new one?" Sookie asked. "The one in the driveway looks pretty new."

"Yeah, nah. If I don't replace it now it just loses too much value, eh?" Jason looked to me for agreement, but I didn't really fucking care about whatever the fuck a ute was, so I just shrugged. "What's for dinner, Sook?" he asked.

"Hamburgers" Sookie said.

"Choice. You got any beetroot?"

"Yeah, 'course" Sookie replied. "You want an egg in yours?"

"Yup" Jason said, before taking a swig of his beer.

Sookie turned to me. "I take it you don't want either beetroot or a fried egg?" I shook my head no. These people were weird, and I did not understand why they felt the need to put all that shit in their hamburgers.

I kind of hovered near Sookie while she cooked. She gave me a few glances but didn't say anything other than to tell me to shove over once or twice, so I guessed it was OK. Jason sat there and talked at us. Then all of a sudden he looked me up and down and said "Hey, Sook. Have you got yourself a toyboy?"

"Shut up, Jason" Sookie said, sounding only about half as annoyed as I was. I wished he would fucking shut up. Soon. But no, Jason decided to carry on.

"I knew you had a rich American, eh? But I thought it was more of a sugar-daddy type thing. That's a fuck-off big ring you've got there. But I didn't realise you were also robbing the cradle, eh?" Jason took another drink of his beer.

I looked at Sookie, expecting her to say something. But she didn't. She just carried on slicing tomatoes. I really fucking wanted to say something, but I wasn't sure what the rules were. He was her brother, so surely she had some loyalty there. But at the same time, the man was a fucking moron, and I was seriously pissed off with him.

So I just waited for a bit. Sookie put down the knife, walked around the other side of the breakfast bar and punched Jason in the arm, really fucking hard. I enjoyed watching that. A lot.

What I didn't enjoy watching was what happened next when Jason grabbed Sookie and attempted to put her in a headlock. I was about to intervene, when she managed to grab his hand and bend his fingers back, causing him to yelp in pain and let go of her. "Next time" she said, poking him in the chest with her finger "I'll punch you in the nuts. Hard. Then you'll be sorry. Now stop being such a dipshit, Jason."

Sookie started to walk back into the kitchen, but Amelia, who had been watching the whole exchange with interest suddenly asked "What's a toyboy?"

"Bugger" Sookie muttered under her breath, shooting a death-glare at Jason. Then to Amelia she said "Come on, let's go and wash your hands. Felicia, you too." And she disappeared off to the bathroom with the kids, leaving me alone with Jason.

"Shit, she's mean" Jason said, still grinning. "She fuckin' would punch me in the nuts too, eh? She ever do that shit to you?"

"Nope"

"Yeah, she probably likes your nuts though. She's fuckin' brutal with mine." He took another drink of his beer. "You have any sisters, Eric?"

"No."

"You're lucky. They're fuckin' evil."

"Um, I don't really think of my wife as…evil" I said. I didn't really want to say anything to him, but he was pissing me off.

"Shit, did you guys get hitched and I didn't get a fuckin' invite? Fuck, that'll be because Sookie's still pissed about the last wedding. I didn't fuckin' know it was Bill's sister, eh? And anyway, she fuckin' chased me around all fuckin' night, but no, I'm the one who gets it in the ear from Sookie because what's-her-tits goes fuckin' bleatin' to Bill. Fuck. What a fuckin' dick he was, eh?"

I guess we agreed on something then. "You didn't miss it." I said.

"Miss what?" Jason asked. Obviously following his own train of thought was not one of Jason's strongpoints.

"The wedding…or whatever we're doing." I was still a bit unclear, but it made Sookie happy. "It's November."

"Oh. Cool. I'll tell Crystal. Or maybe not, eh? That is a fuckin' big rock you got Sookie. Crystal might get ideas. How much does something like that cost, anyway?"

Just then Sookie walked back into the room. "Jason! You can't ask stuff like that! Jesus Christ, you don't get any better with age, do you?"

"Now you fuckin' sound like Gran, Sookie. Jesus, get over yourself, will you? I was just asking. Eric doesn't mind, do you mate?"

"Of course he minds, Jason. We both mind. Now just shut up. Dinner's nearly ready."

"Thank Christ for that, it's been a long day and I'm fuckin' starving."

"No you're not, Uncle Jase" said Amelia. "You're just a bit hungry." Then she took the knives and forks Sookie handed to her and skipped off to set the table.

Jason watched her go and then turned to me. "Is it just me or does that kid sound like a tiny fuckin' Sookie? Fuck that's scary, eh?"

He was right, but I wasn't risking my neck so I just shrugged.

Jason turned to Sookie. "He doesn't say much does he, eh? Your Eric. Is that why you keep him around?" Jason laughed at his own joke.

"Maybe" Sookie said, coming to stand opposite Jason, "He doesn't understand anything you're saying because you only speak moron?"

"Yeah, fuck off Sookie. Don't be such a fuckin' uptight cow."

"Don't be such a dumb-arse dickwad. Now go and sit at the table and I'll bring your dinner over."

That seemed to break the tension between the two of them and Jason did as he was told. When he'd vacated his seat I moved over to Sookie. "Is he always like that?" I whispered to her.

"Yeah, Jason never changes. He's always an idiot. OK, help me carry this over, will you?"

I picked up a couple of plates and headed over to the table.

SPOV

Jason coming to visit was nice. For about five minutes. Then I remembered that he's an idiot and most of the time he just annoys me. Still. You'd think we were 7 and 4 not 37 and 34.

I was kind of embarrassed about punching him but that whole robbing the cradle thing really annoyed the hell out of me. I knew exactly what the age difference was; I didn't need Jason pointing it out to me. And no one would comment if it went the other way. But Jason hadn't yet learned boundaries. I doubted he ever would. No wonder Crystal's dad didn't like him. Half the time I didn't like him and I was related to him.

He was right about Eric though, Eric was really quiet. I guessed he was just scoping Jason out to see what he did. At the best of times Jason gave off a kind of vibe that he was about to do something stupid and/or dangerous, and that was before he started talking. He was always hard to contain, especially as a kid. Thank God I don't have any boys, I thought. Imagine if they'd turned out like Jason.

I just hoped Eric didn't blame me too much for bringing Jason into the house. But I couldn't send him away just yet. Surely we could manage two nights. And he was going out tonight.

"So, Hoyt's coming over to pick you up, right?" I asked Jason.

"Yeah. That way I don't have to find my way around Auckland."

"Jason, you're from Auckland. You're hardly the small-town boy who can't cope with a roundabout and more than one set of traffic lights."

"It's better this way though, eh? 'Cos Hoyt's living in Chowick now, and that's fuckin' miles from here."

"Jason! Don't be flippin' racist! It's Howick, not Chowick. You wouldn't talk like that at home, would you?"

Jason shrugged. "Crystal wouldn't mind, eh?"

"I'm sure she would. Well this is my house, so my rules. No racism and no swearing. Got it?"

"Yes, mum!" Jason said smirking at me.

"You're impossible" I muttered and went back to my dinner. Jason took a bite out of his hamburger and a large chunk of beetroot fell out. Eric eyed it with disgust, but I couldn't tell if he was disgusted at the beetroot or my brother, or both.

It was probably the beetroot. But who wants a hamburger without beetroot?

Everyone was silent for a bit then Amelia said "Mummy, why are you so mean to Uncle Jase?" Jason burst out laughing at that. "Yeah, Sook. Go on, why are you so mean to me?"

Oh God, I thought. How do I describe the years of being at the mercy of my older brother without giving Amelia ideas that Felicia won't thank me for? "Um" I said. "I'm not mean to him. I'm just asking him to mind his manners, like I do with you."

Amelia looked thoughtful. "Are you his mummy, then?"

"No, I'm his sister. Like Felicia's your sister. We had the same mummy."

"Oh, but she's dead right? Like my first dad."

"Yeah."

"Are you going to die?"

Shit, fuck, hell. This was the question I had been dreading. How did I explain it when I couldn't use the whole 'but you die when you're old' speech, because nobody I knew was that old when they died? Except for Gran. But she was the minority. I looked at Eric, who was looking at me expectantly. Well, he was no help there was he.

However, Jason decided he'd tackle this one. "Nah, Sooks won't die, eh?"

"Why not?" asked Amelia.

"Well, not soon anyway. She's like my cows. The heifers that breed well, they never fuckin' just keel over, eh? Especially the really fuckin' difficult ones that kick up a fuss every time you try to milk them. They just keep going and going. Your mum's just like that. So, Sooks, she's fine. She'll fuckin' out-live all of us. Can I get another burger, Sookie? I'll need something to line my stomach for later on, eh?"

I stood up to get Jason more food and looked over at Amelia, who just said "OK" and went back to eating her dinner happily. Wow, I thought, Jason actually nailed that one. By comparing me to a heifer. I wasn't sure whether to hug him or actually carry through with my threat to punch him in the nuts. In the end I just gave him another burger.

We made it through the rest of dinner without any more awkward questions from Amelia or stupid remarks from Jason. Eric said almost nothing but just helped Felicia eat her food and gave her some of his.

Afterwards Eric bathed the kids and put them to bed while Jason watched me clear the table. He did carry one plate to the kitchen, but then he got involved in telling me some story about the farm and forgot to help after that. I'd forgotten how useless he was. I wondered if Crystal let him get away with it. Probably. We all did. That was half Jason's problem. Everyone let him get away with all sorts of crap.

About half an hour after the kids were in bed there was a knock at the door. Jason went to answer it. "Hoyt! You fuckin' homo, how the fuck are you?" we heard him yell. Eric looked at me and I shrugged. I didn't know how that whole use a derogatory term as a greeting thing worked. Eric was a bloke, surely he should know? I guessed maybe Jason and Hoyt belonged to a special sub-tribe or something.

So I went and said hello to Hoyt and caught up on his life a bit, introduced him to Eric and gave Jason the spare set of keys. I was tempted to find a safety-pin and pin them into the pocket of his jeans, like Mum had always done with his bus-pass, but he still lost most of his bus-passes anyway, so there probably wasn't any point.

"Well, we'll see you later on then" I said as they walked down the path to Hoyt's car. "Have fun! And be good!"

"Yeah, yeah. Don't fuckin' wait up, eh?" Jason yelled over his shoulder.

I closed the door and looked at Eric. "Thank Christ he's gone out" I said.

"So…you don't like having him here?" Eric asked as we walked back to the kitchen.

"Well, it's nice, um, briefly. Then he starts talking too much and I just want to take to him with a knife. I realise that probably makes me a terrible sister. But it's true. He's annoying. Don't you think?"

Eric turned away and started to make coffee. "Um" he said, obviously not wanting to give a firm opinion. "Um...he's not what I'm used to."

"I don't know that you ever get used to Jason" I said. "I think you just learn to put up with him."

Eric didn't say anything else, just handed me my coffee. "Come on" I said. "Let's go and watch another episode of Outrageous Fortune. It might help you understand Jason. Slightly." I'd been making Eric watch episodes with me from time to time, he kind of got it, well he got the nudity and the swearing, he was a bit lost at some of the in-jokes about names and places and I had to point those out to him. I think he enjoyed it.

"Can we watch in bed?" Eric asked.

"Yeah, 'cos it's cold. My feet are freezing!"

Eric looked down. "How can your feet be cold in those huge things?" I had my big Ugg boots on. But they weren't helping.

I shrugged. "They just are. I always have cold feet in winter. But luckily I have you now. You're saving us a ton of money because I haven't had to put the electric blanket on once yet this winter!" I said brightly. It was true. I might have moaned about Eric smothering me and making me all sweaty during summer, but at this time of year, it was lovely. It was also a slightly different story though, with a lot of me trying to cuddle up close to Eric, while he complained bitterly that I had no circulation and my feet were freezing.

"I'm so glad to be of use, Sookie" Eric said, taking his cup and walking toward the bedroom.

I poked him in the back. "Oh you" I said. "You know you love it when I need you for stuff."

"Mmmm" Eric said, putting his cup down on his bedside table. "I don't think replacement for the electric blanket is really the most glamorous role you could offer me."

I laughed. "I think you'll find Eric, that that's just another definition for husband."

I walked past Eric to go and find some pyjamas. After I'd changed I took off my necklace and my engagement ring and put them away. I loved my ring; I'd helped design it after all. It had one emerald cut diamond in the centre surrounded by lots of small diamonds to make a larger rectangle, with a few diamonds down each side of the band. It was awesome. And I didn't want to know how much it cost. Unlike my stupid brother.

I got changed and got into bed beside Eric, who'd switched the TV and the DVD player on. "So, he's going home Sunday?" Eric asked.

"Yeah, I guess the cows won't milk themselves, and he's only got someone covering for him until Monday."

"OK. We can last until Sunday."

"Without either of us having to kill him" I added, before reaching over for my coffee. Eric didn't say anything, but I'm almost a hundred per cent certain he was thinking the same thing.

**We use ute for a smaller truck, especially one you'd have on a farm. Outrageous Fortune is a hugely popular NZ TV show. If you go to my profile I posted some links so people can hear Kiwi accents and the third one was a promo for it. And Jason is being horribly racist with the 'Chowick' remark. Quite a few immigrants from various parts of Asia settled in East Auckland and the suburb of Howick got that nickname for a while. Jason, being a South Auckland boy, would definitely know it. And think it's hilarious. **

**Thanks for reading!**


	2. Chapter 2

**A/N Thanks everyone for the reviews and all the alerts after the first chapter of this story was published. This chapter is only short, but honestly, it's been that kind of day! So I decided to cut it in two and post with what I had here. **

**Disclaimer: Not mine. I just make some of them live with cows.**

EPOV

Sookie's feet, which she'd jammed between my calves, had finally warmed up enough for me to go to sleep when I heard the noises start. I woke with a start, and at first couldn't figure out what I was hearing. Then I figured it out. It was fucking Jason, trying to get the key to fit in the lock.

I got out of bed carefully, so I wouldn't wake Sookie, and then walked out to open the door for Jason.

"Oh. Cheers, Eric mate" he said when I pulled it open. "That's a fucking hard lock to find in the dark."

"Or if you've been drinking" I said.

"Yeah, that too, eh?" Jason said sniggering. He just stood in the hallway and looked a bit lost. At least he didn't look too fucking drunk.

"Do you remember where you're sleeping?" I asked him.

"Um…"

"In there" I said, pointing to the spare room. Now I was back consulting I'd been trying to use it as an office but Sookie had made me clean all my stuff up before Jason arrived, although it was still in there in piles. I hoped he didn't fucking touch anything.

"Oh, right. Yep. The tiny room." Jason started to shuffle off.

"OK, 'night then." Enjoy that fucking awful lumpy bed I thought.

"Yep, 'night mate." Jason headed off and I went back to bed.

I moved Bob off our bed, as he'd taken advantage of the warm spot I'd left, and climbed in. Sookie immediately shuffled closer to me and stuck her feet against my legs. They were fucking freezing again; I don't understand how that could happen. She was tucked up in bed for fuck's sake.

"Is he OK?" she mumbled.

"Jason? He's fine. He just forgot how to work a key."

"Yeah, he does that. At least you didn't yell at him. He tends to yell back and I'm not awake enough to come and break the two of you up."

I didn't say anything. I assumed that maybe Bill used to yell at Jason. But I'd seen worse drunks. Sookie fell asleep again and I followed suit, only to be woken up again only a few hours later by the sound of someone stomping around the kitchen. It took me a few minutes to figure out who the hell it would be.

I wriggled out from under Sookie and pulled on a sweatshirt before going out to see what the hell Jason was up to. From the smell that hit me as I got closer to the kitchen, it was obvious he was burning toast.

"Morena" Jason said cheerfully, opening a window. He turned to look at me. "Oh, I guess I better cut out the Maori with you, eh? It'll all be fuckin' gobbledegook."

"You're up…early" I said. I wasn't sure what the time was, but it was dark. Fucking dark.

"Yep. Used to it now, eh? I'd normally be out in the milking shed by now. This is way fuckin' easier."

"Yeah, guess it would be." I started to make some coffee. "You want some?" I asked Jason.

"Nah, I'm good mate. I found the tea bags."

He'd also found the bread, half a jar of peanut butter and a banana from the look of the concoction he'd made.

"Right, I'm off to watch TV." Jason took his bizarre toast and headed off to the living room.

I wasn't sure what to do, I could have gone back to bed as Jason seemed OK on his own, but I was up now and I had coffee. Fuck it, I thought. I might as well stay up. So I made myself some toast and went to join Jason.

"There's a replay of the League" he said to me, conversationally, as I sat down.

"OK."

"The Warriors really suck most of the time, but there's always fuckin' hope, eh? Well that's what we tell ourselves."

I didn't say anything else, just watched the TV. After a while Jason kind of explained what was going on in the game. I have to say that his explanations made a fuck load more sense than half of what Sookie said whenever she tried to explain sports to me. She tended to rely far too much on the terms 'thingy' and 'wotsit' which I'm pretty sure were not correct sporting terms.

The game finished up and we took our dishes out to the kitchen. At that point Sookie appeared, wrapped in her fucking ugly pink bathrobe. "Brrr, it's freezing!" she said. "Did neither of you think to put a heater on or anything if you were up?"

I shrugged, but Jason laughed. "God, you're a wuss, Sook. Get hard."

Sookie glared at him, then went over and put her hand down the back of his shirt. "Ah! Fuck! Get off! Your hands are like fuckin' ice, woman!"

I made the mistake of laughing and Sookie's head whipped around to face me. Sookie stepped away from Jason and managed to corner me by the pantry where I got the other freezing hand shoved down the back of my sleep pants to rest on my butt. Jason just about fell over, he was laughing so fucking hard.

"You're both dicks" Sookie muttered, after she finally relented and removed her hand.

I was about to offer Sookie coffee, in the hope it might cheer her up a bit, when Jason pushed a cup towards her. "I made you tea" he said.

"Cheers" Sookie said to him, taking a sip. Fuck, when does she drink tea? I thought. Now, apparently, was really the answer to that one.

"Do you want toast?" I asked Sookie.

"Yeah, that'd be great. Oh, here we go." We could hear Amelia come stomping down the hallway.

"Uncle Jase, you're still here" she said.

"Yep, no one's kicked me out on my arse. Yet!"

"What?" asked Amelia.

"Never mind" Sookie said.

"I do mind" Amelia stared at Sookie, who turned away to butter her toast. Amelia gave up. "So, Uncle Jase, are you really a farmer?"

"Yep."

"Have you got sheep, then?"

"Nope."

"Pigs?"

"Nope, just cows."

Amelia frowned. "Well I don't think you're a farmer then. You have to have more than just cows."

"No, you don't Amelia" Sookie said. "You can farm just one type of animal. It's not like it is in your books."

"No, you're wrong. Uncle Jase isn't a farmer then. He just…he just, um. He just lives with cows."

Luckily Jason laughed at that. Amelia took the toast I handed her and wandered off to the table. "Shit, Sook. She's really quite stroppy. She sounds a fuck-load like you as a kid, eh?"

"No, she doesn't. She's not a thing like me. If you'd spent more time around Bill's mum you'd know she's an _exact _copy of her grandmother. Exact." Sookie took a bite of toast, assuming the matter was closed. Jason looked over at me, and stupidly, I sniggered.

"What?" Sookie asked. "Don't you agree with him. You're all going to stick together now, is that it? Honestly, you're just as bad as each other. I'm going to have a shower." With that she stomped off to the bathroom.

"Sorry, mate" Jason said. "Guess you're in the doghouse with me on that one, eh?"

"Yeah, I think I can get out of it" I said.

"I'm fuckin' sure you can" Jason said. I didn't have to reply because Felicia started yelling "Dard, dard. Sucky!"

I headed down to her room to get her out of bed.

After her shower Sookie seemed to be feeling a bit better about things. Well she'd stopped muttering about Jason and I being dicks at any rate.

Sookie and Amelia made scones for morning tea, which meant that were occasional raised voices coming from the kitchen. Jason had disappeared off somewhere to phone Crystal and I was left with Felicia. We were sitting on the family room floor playing with the shape-sorter when Sookie brought the scones in.

"Jason! They're ready!" she yelled. Fuck, she was loud when she wanted to be.

Jason appeared at the table. "Choice. You know, Sook. You'd make a fuckin' excellent farmer's wife if you wanted."

"Oh, good grief no. I get scared in the countryside. I like the big city."

Jason stuffed a scone in his mouth. "I guess this isn't exactly the big city to you, eh Eric?"

I shrugged. "So whereabouts are you from?" he asked.

"Um, California originally."

"Oh yeah? So you're into surfing and shit then?"

"The part without a beach."

"Where? There isn't a part without a beach. Is there? Sook, is he fuckin' pullin' my leg?"

"No, Jason, you're just dumb."

"Mum, you're being mean to Uncle Jase again" Amelia added in. Sookie just rolled her eyes. Felicia got wind of the conversation and started chanting "Jay, jay, jay!"

"Hey, she sounds like you, Sooks! Jason said.

"What?" Sookie asked.

"You. When you were tiny, eh. Jase was your first word, remember?"

Sookie looked thoughtful. "Yeah, it was, wasn't it? I'd kind of forgotten that."

"Shit, you used to follow me around every fuckin' place I went, eh? Remember how you wore out a pair of sandals that one summer?"

"Well they wouldn't buy me a bike! I don't know why not, but Mum was just a bit…well, mean about that. I had to run after you." Sookie did fucking sound like Amelia when she was complaining about that.

Jason burst out laughing. "What's so funny?" Sookie asked grumpily. "It wasn't bloody funny having to run after you all that time."

"Oh, Sooks. Shit, you're fuckin' hilarious. Mum only said it because she thought you'd give up."

"What?"

"She said you could go with me if you could keep up, 'cos she thought you'd fuckin' give up. She didn't want you out with me. Well, not all that much, eh? She thought you'd give up after a couple of times. But you fuckin' didn't. You're so fuckin' stubborn you spent two years running around after me before you got your own bike."

"Oh. Really?" Sookie asked, looking surprised. "How do you know all this?"

"Because I asked them to buy you one. To stop you fuckin' moaning at me constantly. But Mum said that you were too little and you'd give up soon. But you never fuckin' give up."

"Oh. Oh I never knew any of this." Sookie looked a bit, well, dumbfounded. It was like her whole childhood was being re-written. "I just always thought…well it seemed like…like, they liked you better or something. I mean, I remember doing lots of stuff around the house. Like peeling potatoes and stuff like that. I peeled a lot of potatoes standing on my little red plastic chair. I don't remember you having to do that."

Jason laughed again. "Nah, not my thing, eh? But you know Mum only let you do it because otherwise you'd stand on that chair and tell her exactly how she should be doing it, eh? You were fuckin' bossy, just like that one."

"I'm not bossy" Sookie said.

"And I'm lovely" Amelia added.

"Yeah, you two stick with that then, eh? Eric and I know the truth." Jason looked over at me and winked. Fuck, I thought, don't drag me into this. But I could imagine Sookie standing there as a kid telling everyone what to do. Mainly because I'd seen Amelia, the supposed Lorena-clone, do exactly the same thing.

Sookie finished the scone she was eating then stood up. "I wonder what these would taste like with lemon curd?" she said, before heading off to the kitchen.

"Ugh, I hate that fuckin' stuff. Anything lemon is nasty, eh?" Jason said.

Sookie came back with the jar and waved it under Jason's nose. "Ugh, get it away from me, you evil, evil woman!" Jason made a swipe for it, but Sookie stepped away. Then she lunged back with the jar again.

"Right, that's it" Jason said, standing up. "You're in trouble now, Sooks." I was worried this was going to end with Sookie in a head-lock, but instead Jason held his hands out in front of him and wiggled his fingers.

"You wouldn't?" Sookie said. Jason didn't say anything, he just took a step closer. Sookie put the lemon curd jar on the table and stepped back. "Jason Stackhouse, you just stay right where you are!" she half-yelled at him. And then she ran. She ran right round the table with Jason chasing her before she came and crouched down behind my chair with her hands on my shoulders. "Eric, this is the bit where you're supposed to save me from Jason" she said.

"I'm keeping out of it. And anyway, you were doing alright last night." I ate another scone. Sookie stayed crouched behind me and Jason just hovered.

"But he's being _mean_!" Sookie complained. "He's trying to do mean things, and you're supposed to stop him." She jabbed me in the shoulder with her finger to make her point.

A thought suddenly occurred to me. "Sookie" I said, turning around to look at her, still crouched down in a defensive position. "Are you ticklish?"

"Um…no" she said unconvincingly. "No, I'm not."

"She fuckin' is" Jason said.

"Really?" I asked Sookie. This was news. I wasn't sure how I'd missed this one, but I had. Obviously Sookie was hiding a few things really well.

"If I admit it, will you tell Jason to leave me alone?" she asked plaintively.

"Um, OK then."

"Yes. Yes I am ticklish. But just a bit. And not very often, you know. But just sometimes…"

"OK. Jason, sit down."

"Fair 'nough" Jason said, sitting down. He'd watched the pair of us with a big grin on his face, realising he'd dropped Sookie in it. Sookie slowly stood up from behind the chair, watched Jason and I briefly to see if either of us were going to do anything, then resumed her seat.

Jason's visit wasn't going too badly today. It was quite entertaining at times. And best of all, I had some really fucking useful information for later on.

**Thanks for reading!**


	3. Chapter 3

**A/N Hello! Thanks again for the reviews, and a big hello to all those who have been putting this story into their favourites or alerts! Glad to have you on-board!**

**Disclaimer: Not mine.**

SPOV

So far Saturday morning was going OK. I felt a bit less like murdering my brother than I did the night before, which was something. Although he seemed to have a new partner in crime in Eric. How two grown men can sit in a freezing cold living room for an hour without thinking to put a heater on, is beyond me. And then they moan like anything when I touch them. Typical blokes, they're all sticking together now.

Worst of all I ended up admitting to Eric that I'm ticklish. I was a bit worried he was going to grab me there and then, but he was obviously biding his time. Probably waiting for when we're alone, leaving me to be jumpy all day.

But the strangest moment by far had been hearing Jason's take on our childhoods. I'd spent years thinking, deep down, that Mum and Dad hadn't bought me a bike, because, well, they liked Jason better. Everyone liked Jason better, it was just one of those hard and fast rules that the world seems to turn on. But maybe it wasn't the case. Maybe Mum really had just stuffed up totally in telling me I could go with him, thinking I'd get bored and give up. Now that I had two kids of my own, I could kind of understand how that would happen. You say something and they make you stick by it. Forever.

But I did remember exactly why I was so desperate to go with him in the first place. Because when I was four my brother was the coolest person I knew in the entire world.

"So is there anything you need to do today Jase?" I asked as I cleared up morning tea. It was a miserable day outside, the rain was pouring down and it was cold, despite the fact I'd turned some heaters on. Jason was kind of staring out the door though. He never did like to be cooped up inside. Even as a kid he'd rather be outside, and, as a consequence I remember him being in trouble for coming home wet and muddy. A lot.

"Um, well Crystal gave me this list, eh? She thought I might go to the shops. But I dunno. Seems like a waste of time…"

"Let me see the list?" I asked, closing the dishwasher door.

Jason pulled a piece of paper out of his pocket and handed it over. From the looks of it she wanted some cosmetics and some stuff for the kids. Including a birthday present. I didn't think that Jason quite understood that Crystal would probably be really pissed off if he didn't return with what she'd asked for. There was a list for a _reason_. But of course Jason is as thick as anything sometimes

"Um, I think maybe you should go and get this stuff, Jase. I'll come with you. We'll go to St Luke's." Jason looked like I'd suggested we go and lie down on the motorway or something. "It's not _that_ bad" I said.

"It fuckin' is. I hate shopping." He stood there for a moment, then he smiled. "Hey, Sook. Do you want to go for me?"

Yeah, I thought, on any other woman that smile might work, but I'd seen it so many times now I was immune. Mostly.

"Nu-uh. No way. You have to come too. But I'll go with you and maybe even buy you lunch if you behave."

"Fuck, Sook! You're mean. You like this shopping shit, you should do it, eh?"

"Nope. I'll come with you but that's it. I'll just go and get changed."

"Why?" Jason asked.

"Because I'm only wearing yucky old track-suit pants you total dipstick. I can't go to St Luke's like this!

"It's only the shops, eh? I don't think you have to get dressed up. I don't want to sit around waiting for you for ages."

"I won't be ages." I walked over to where Eric was sitting with the kids and explained where I was going then I headed off to get changed. No way was I going to St Luke's in my round the house clothes. I could hear Jason and Eric laughing, probably at me again, but I ignored them.

It was tempting to take my time getting ready, but I figured Jason would just get antsy and he'd be in a mood before we even left the house. So I threw on my leggings, boots and my big jumper that keeps annoyingly slipping off one shoulder, grabbed my bag and headed back out.

"OK, come on Jase, let's go. The parking will be a mare on a wet day so let's get going now."

Jason looked exactly like he did as a kid when Mum used to make him go shopping. "Fine" he huffed. "But I'm fuckin' driving there. Your driving's shit."

"No it's not. Anyway, you helped teach me to drive. Right, Eric, you're holding the fort." I kissed him briefly as I went past. "See you all later on!" I pushed Jason out the door ahead of me and we ran through the rain to his ute. That was going to fun to park at St Luke's.

EPOV

Sookie seemed positively giddy at the prospect of taking Jason to the mall. Poor fucker. He looked pretty miserable at the idea. I couldn't blame him. When Sookie skipped off to get changed he came over to me and said "Fuck. She's going to drag me into every fuckin' shop looking for shit that's on sale. She's just like Mum."

"Yep" I agreed, trying not to laugh too loud in case Sookie figured out we were laughing at her. "You sound like you've had to do this before."

"Fuck-loads. I was hoping to avoid it but Sookie's not lettin' me get out of it, eh?"

"Yep, you're fucked" I agreed.

Just then Sookie reappeared looking really fucking hot. She was wearing that big sweater that shows off one shoulder and her bra strap and always looks really fucking great. Plus she had on the legging things that are really tight. It didn't seem fair that I got stuck with the Sookie in tracksuit pants and Jason got to hang out with the really hot looking version.

Plus I got two bored kids on a wet day. As she left she told me I was holding the fort. Amelia immediately turned round. "What's a fort, Eric? Where's the fort?"

"Um, it's a building…kind of…"

"Well how would you be holding a building? That can't be what Mum said. I think you've got it wrong."

Amelia just stood there looking at me. I could hear Felicia in the kitchen. She sounded as though she was emptying a shelf in the pantry again, Sookie must have left the door open in her rush to leave. I looked at the rain beating down on the glass doors.

"Do you want to build a fort, Amelia?"

"Can we?"

"Yeah, we need something to do."

"OK then!"

SPOV

The trip to St Luke's started off well enough. As predicted, parking was a problem, but we got there in the end. Not without having to sit with Jason in his ute while he muttered and swore and said it was never like this in Stratford. Well of course it wasn't, I thought, it would be full of farmers and their cows and truly horrifying. Not that I'd ever been to Stratford, but still. I was fairly sure it would be a different world down there.

We got through Jason's errands with only a small amount of complaining from him. He was worse than Eric and the kids. Combined. Mostly he was moaning about all the 'latte drinking wanky Aucklanders wandering about the place'.

"Jesus Jason" I said. "You're from fucking Auckland. Don't tell me that everyone you know down the line isn't laughing at you for being a JAFA?" Jason was quiet. "They fucking do, don't they?" I goaded.

"I told them I was from the 'tron, eh?" Jason mumbled.

"What?" I asked, having not really caught what he said.

"I told them I was from Hamilton" Jason admitted, grumpily.

"Oh, for goodness' sake. That's terrible! You can't lie like that."

"It's not really fuckin' lying. I did live there. For a bit."

"For about three months when you followed that girl down there. Right after I got married. And right after you'd slept with Sarah and caused all kinds of problems for me and Bill."

"Sarah? Who the fuck is Sarah?"

"Bill's sister, you dick. From the wedding."

"Oh. She's the skinny one, eh?"

"Yes. And I know you slept with his other sister Caroline at some stage too. You're a fucking menace, you are!"

Jason just giggled. "I can't fuckin' help it, eh? They're all fuckin' after me!"

We'd reached the coffee shop now, where I said I'd buy Jason lunch. "Yeah" I agreed. "They are kind of…slutty, those girls. "

We queued up to grab some trays and choose our lunch out of the cabinets. Jason seemed to be going for his old stand-bys; an egg sandwich, a lamington and two pies. I don't know how he ate like that and still kept in shape. I guess it was all the pushing around stroppy cows in the milking shed.

"Yeah, and their brother was a total fuckin' arsebandit, eh?" Jason added.

"Shut the fuck up Jason, you know nothing!" I hissed. I was sorely tempted to punch him in the nuts but we were in a public place.

Jason shrugged. "Sorry, Sook. I figured you'd moved on, so, you know. I thought it was OK to say what we thought of him, eh? 'Cos I always thought he was a fuckin' poncey wanker."

"Well he thought you were a fucking moron who couldn't tell his arse from his elbow. And right now I kind of agree with him. Did you think about my feelings?" We had to pause the argument to pay for our food. The woman in front of us in the queue had been stealing glances back at us, kind of enjoying the show, but I wasn't going to carry on in front of the guy behind the counter. I almost reneged on my offer to treat, but I wasn't quite that petty. Yet.

Glaring at Jason I led us to a free table. "For fuck's sake, Jason" I continued when we'd sat down. "I was married to Bill. I had two kids with him. Think about how I feel before you open your mouth and spew out all the dumb shit that pollutes your brain!"

"Christ, Sooks. Build a fuckin' bridge already. I got the fuckin' message. Don't say bad shit about fuckin' Saint Bill. Fuck. And he was such a fuckin' arsehole to you. I would have thought you'd be the last person to be singing his praises."

I put down the knife I'd used to cut into the panini I'd chosen. Mainly so I wouldn't be tempted to stab my brother to death in the middle of St Luke's. But also so I could gather my thoughts before I spoke again. I didn't want to defend Bill as such, but I also didn't want Jason denigrating him. It was fine line. And Jason had bulldozed straight over it.

"Jason" I said, as calmly as I could muster at this point. He looked at me with his mouth stuffed full of potato-top pie. "Bill wasn't the best husband. And he made mistakes. I think we all know that. I don't think there's any point fucking calling him names now. He's not here to hear them. I fuckin' am. And I do not need any reminders that I was the silly cow who married him in the first place!"

I started eating and Jason carried on without saying anything else. The waiter brought over the coffee I'd ordered and Jason's tea and we were still quiet. When he'd finally finished everything on his plate, plus the half of my ginger crunch that I'd passed over to him, Jason finally spoke. "Sorry, Sook" he said.

"That's OK. But you owe me big-time, now. For being such a completely insensitive moron."

"What do you want?"

"The keys to the ute. I'm driving home."

EPOV

From my spot hunched under the table I heard Sookie and Jason arrive home. "I told you I could back it into the driveway without hitting the wall" Sookie said. "Ye of little faith!"

"Well, your reversing has fuckin' improved, I'll give you that, Sook" Jason said, as I crawled out of the space I was jammed in while Amelia yelled "Eric! You can't come out!" and glared at me. I ignored her and went to find out what the story was.

"What's this about the wall?" I asked Sookie.

She rolled her eyes. "Relax, Eric. Your wall is fine. I drove home and Jase reckoned I couldn't back the ute in without hitting something. But I did. So stick that up your arse, Jason!"

"Well, you know. You did bloody total the letterbox that one time…" Jason grumbled.

"Once Jason! Once, when I was backing the trailer with the boat on it for fuck's sake. It wasn't a small boat. And Dad said we needed a new letterbox anyway!"

"Yeah, well he said that to you. It was me that had to help him fuckin' build a new one, eh?"

"I know. I don't know why he couldn't just buy one like everyone else. I hated having the weirdest letterbox on the street."

"Yeah, we fuckin' did, didn't we? I kept trying to tell the old man his design was shit but he didn't fuckin' listen to me, eh? The postie couldn't find where to put the fuckin' mail half the time."

I'd just been to listening in to this exchange as Sookie and Jason didn't seem to need my input. Sookie was still laughing at Jason's comments as she walked into the family room, then she stopped short.

"What's that?" she said, gesturing to my construction, which was basically some blankets over the table with the chairs barricaded around it.

"A fort" Jason and I said together.

"It's a princess castle!" Amelia shouted over us. "I'm the princess-witch. Eric was supposed to be in the dungeon, but he got out. Leesha's still in there, though. She's too little to escape."

Felicia was still under there because I'd piled a whole lot of her toys under the table, in an effort to get her to stay put. Previously she'd kept escaping which had caused a huge amount of fuss from the princess-witch.

"Uncle Jase" Amelia said, "You can be in the dungeon next!" she gestured with her wand. Somehow her role still required her to wear fairy wings. And a tiara.

"Yeah, hang on a minute. Just let me put this stuff away." He held up the shopping bags he was carrying.

Before he walked off though, he turned to Sookie and me. "You fuckin' need to get some boys around here, eh?"

Sookie laughed and went into kitchen. "Yeah, 'cos you were soooo much easier, weren't you, Jase?"

"You know I was, eh?" And then he disappeared into the spare room.

The rest of the afternoon passed quite quickly, despite the fact we were all stuck inside due to the rain. Jason took his turn in the dungeon of the princess castle. The girls got on quite well with Jason. Probably because most of the time he didn't act like he was much older than Amelia.

SPOV

The argument we'd had at St Luke's blew over pretty quickly. Jason and I weren't ones for keeping grudges. If we were, I suspect that we would have stopped talking about 30 years ago and that would have been that.

I was in the kitchen with him later on in the day, having made him another one of his endless cups of tea when he suddenly said "Did you get the invite to Aunt Linda's 60th?"

"What?" I asked.

"Aunt Linda. Her party. You going?"

"Um, I didn't know anything about it. How come you do?"

"Hadley invited me, eh?"

"Well she hasn't sent me an invitation." I knew that Hadley and I didn't always get on, and I knew I hadn't seen her or Aunty Linda, in, well, years, if you didn't count Bill's funeral. But all the same, I was actually quite annoyed that she'd left me out like that.

"It was on Facebook."

"Facebook? Shit, Jason. When did you learn to use a computer?"

He shrugged. "Crystal set it all up, eh? She's really good at that kind of shit. So anyway, I got the invite and I think we'll come up for it. Should be a laugh, eh? It's in August."

"Oh, OK. Well I'll have to talk to Hadley then and find out about it." I didn't really want to talk to Hadley at all, but I felt like I should go. I couldn't work out what would have been the worse outcome, Jason not telling me and me missing it altogether and finding out later that my family hate me, or actually having to go to it and see my family again. It was a close call.

I handed Jason his tea and Felicia walked in carrying Sockie. "Sucky!" she announced, holding it out to Jason.

"Why does that kid think everything's fuckin' sucky?"

"It's not sucky. It's Sockie."

"Sookie?"

"SOCKIE! It's the name of her cuddly. See the sock she's carrying."

"Why the fuck would she want to cuddle a sock?"

"I guess she likes it. Probably because it's her dad's or something."

"That's fuckin' gross Sookie!"

"No it's not! Only when she sucks it. It was a clean sock. When she first got it, anyway."

"No but, fuck. Carrying around a dead guy's sock. That's fuckin' weird."

"Oh. No. Not Bill's sock, Eric's sock. Duh!"

"You said her dad's sock, so duh yourself!"

"Yeah. Eric! He gets to be her dad now. We're getting married, remember. Well having a civil union."

"What the fuck is that anyway?"

Eric walked into the kitchen at this point, but just stayed quiet. He was always interested in that question as well.

"Um, well it's like a marriage, but it's not called that. It's still like a government thing…" It was hard to explain to Jason. Because he's a moron.

"So what's the fuckin' point then?"

I glared at Eric who still hadn't said anything, but just raised his eyebrows at me, and then I turned back to Jason. "It's just different. And I wanted something different."

"Seems fuckin' pointless to me. And anyway, isn't that what they have for the homos and shit?"

I flicked him on the ear. "OK, now you're just being offensive. Take your stupid tea and get out of my kitchen, idiot-boy."

Well, there was about five minutes there when I wasn't annoyed with Jason, I thought.

Late in the afternoon Jason made a great show of looking at his watch. "Fuck, Sook! Shouldn't you be putting on the roast about now? Or it won't be done in time."

"I'm not cooking you a roast! You live on a farm, you probably roast everything, even Weetbix."

Jason laughed. "Oh go on, I could go for a nice bit of roast lamb about now."

"With Yorkshire puddings" Eric added. Yeah he liked those.

"Quiet in the cheap seats!" I said to Eric. "No one is getting a roast. In fact, I'm not cooking at all. You guys can go and get fish and chips for tea."

"You're mean!" Jason said.

"No, I'm just not feeding you anymore in the hope you'll get the idea and bugger off home soon."

Jason laughed, but he stood up and went to get his keys. Eric found his wallet and some shoes and checked with me what he was supposed to get. When Jason came back he looked at Eric. "And I suppose you want to drive the fuckin' ute as well, then?"

Eric shrugged. "OK" he said, taking the keys off Jason.

EPOV

Driving Jason's truck wasn't actually that exciting, especially when I had to find a carpark in the Mt Eden Village. But I figured if Sookie could do it, I should as well. Not to prove anything, really. Just because.

We went to the fish and chip shop and placed the order. Jason moaned about the prices "Fuckin' rip-off here, eh?" but still wanted to splash out and order scallops as well. "Can't beat some good kai moana, eh Eric?" I just nodded. The scallops should be good.

We sat down to wait for the order. "Now we're alone, I guess I should do the big-brother thing, eh Eric? And tell you not to do the same stupid shit that Bill did. Or any stupid shit that's going to upset Sookie." He looked at me but I didn't say anything.

"Of course I tried to warn Bill, but he never fuckin' listened to me. Fucker's just lucky he's dead really otherwise I'd be havin' fuckin' words with him about a few fuckin' things. He messed her up badly. Fuckin' badly. Fuck, she didn't deserve that." He trailed off, lost in thought for a bit.

"I don't think you have to worry about me" I said.

"It's fuckin' Sookie I worry about, mate. She was a mess after he left. A total fuckin' mess." He paused for a few seconds. "But I guess the fact she's not a mess now, and she's back to being the same stroppy cow she always was says something about you. But just remember, I might not be able to take you in a fair fight, but I don't always fight fair. Plus, I've got a fuckin' gun now, eh? So take that as your warning and we'll leave it there."

There wasn't much I could add to that, other than "OK". At that point they handed us our order anyway and I paid, to save myself from another round of Jason complaining about the prices.

Dinner was fairly peaceful. As much as it can be with Amelia and Jason both competing to be the loudest person at the table. And with Felicia chanting "Mor mor mor" at me, because although she had her own food in front of her, mine was always better.

It was after dinner that I came seriously close to punching Jason.

We were clearing up and he walked into the kitchen to boil some more water. I guessed he was making another cup of tea, as he seemed to be fucking constantly holding a cup throughout the day. Trying to get past Sookie, who was loading the dishwasher, he said "Sook, move that fat bum of yours so I can get through, for fuck's sake."

I saw red, and I was about to turn around and yell at him, when Sookie stood up and swatted him on the arm. I thought that maybe she'd follow it up with some yelling and the punch in the nuts that she kept threatening him with, but instead she just said "Better a fat bum than a fat head. So tell me Jason, how big is your herd? It can't be more than 10 cows because otherwise you'd never be able to count them."

Jason laughed, and he made his tea while Sookie went back to the dishwasher. It was only when he'd left the kitchen that Sookie looked at me. I must have still been looking annoyed because she said "What's up?"

"Fucking Jason insulting you. There's nothing wrong with your butt. I love it." Fuck, I thought, I hoped this didn't set off another round of self-loathing on her part.

"Oh, yeah. He's been doing that for so many years I barely notice now. He says I'm fat, I call him stupid and we move on."

"So…you're not upset?" I asked.

"About that? God, no. That was pretty mild. I can cope with that."

"Oh, OK."

Sookie came over and put her arms round me. "Seriously, Eric. I can handle Jason. You don't have to fight him for me. Unless he wants to, um, tickle me. Then you have my permission to beat him to a pulp."

"And what happens if I tickle you? Are you going to set Jason on me?"

Sookie laughed. "Yeah, that'd be like setting a terrier on a German shepherd or something. No, if you tickle me then I'll find other ways to punish you. Don't worry about that."

After the kids were in bed we joined Jason in the living room where we were, apparently, watching the rugby. I soo discovered rugby was a different game from the rugby league we'd been watching in the morning. Jason explained a few things to me, but every time he did Sookie would get annoyed and say "He knows that already, Jase! I told him." Well I knew where my loyalties lay so I nodded, but it was interesting to learn that what I'd been told was 'the thing where they have to jump for the ball' was actually a line-out.

Sookie was cold, despite the fact the heater was on. So she threw that disgusting old rug that Bob sleeps on over her and lent against me. Then she sort of wound her legs around mine as well. Finally she stuck her hands underneath my t-shirt because they were cold. They did feel kind of freezing.

When the game was over Jason stood up. "Right, I'm off to bed. See youse in the morning. And don't worry, if you want to root or anything tonight, I'll pretend I can't hear."

"Jason!" Sookie yelled, sitting up and throwing a cushion at him. "Don't say shit like that. I'm your sister."

"Oh, Sookie. You've been feeling poor Eric up all fuckin' night, eh? Don't pretend you're not going to be all over him as soon as you're alone. 'Night!" With that he walked out of the room leaving me with the very pissed Sookie who was still muttering to herself.

She stomped around getting ready for bed and ignoring me. I didn't even get the cold feet when she finally joined under the covers. I rolled over and put my arm over her. "Go away" she muttered.

"Nope." I stuck my hand under her pyjama top and felt…more fabric. "Sookie, how many layers are you wearing?"

"It's cold!" she moaned. "So I kept my singlet on under my pyjamas."

I sighed. "I could warm you up if you like?" I leaned over to whisper the next bit into her ear "From the inside."

"No way!" Sookie said, still facing away from me. "Not with Jason out there. You heard what he said, no way am I giving him the satisfaction."

"What about my satisfaction?"

"You can just sort yourself out. It's your fault anyway, you're the loud one. Remember Christmas night? I was so embarrassed the next time I had to face Andy. They knew exactly what we were doing. No way am I going through that again when I have to see Jason in the morning. And you know he'll just tease me." With that she snuggled herself down and tried to go to sleep.

"Soooookie" I tried, trying to work out to get my hand under both layers she was wearing.

"Sod off, Eric."

I'd managed to get my hand under the bottom of her top so it was touching the skin just above her waist. I left it there for a bit while I tried to think what to do next. Then it came to me, I'd been going to hang on to this information for a bit, but now seemed as good a time as any. I tickled her.

Sookie squirmed around and said "Stop that!" in a really grumpy voice. The squirming was fantastic, because it made her ass wriggle against my cock. Well she had told me to sort myself out. So I tickled her again.

"Eric!" she squealed. "No tickling!" The next time I did it her knees shot up in front of her. I made a mental note to maybe not try this when she was lying in front of me.

Pretty soon she was really squirming and squealing. "Eric!" she said, when I let her catch her breath. "Eric, Jason'll think we're…doing stuff if you keep this up."

"Well you said I was on my own, so you know, it's either I tickle you until I find some satisfaction or you yield."

"Oh for fuck's sake, how old are you? You're worse than Jason!" I just kept tickling her.

"Look, stop! Just stop, Eric!" Sookie said after another minute or so. "Fine! We can have sex, but you have to be quiet!"

"Sookie, you've been making so much noise I don't think it will really matter now whether I'm quiet or not." And then before she could argue with me about that, I kissed her.

Persuading her out of her layers was the next task, and she was reluctant about doing it. The threat of tickling her some more worked well, but I was under strict instructions not to move the covers around too much and let the cold air in.

Finally, I had her naked underneath me. "Not cold, are you?" I asked.

"No, no. I'm good" she said, a bit breathlessly. "You do a good job of keeping me warm."

"Yep, I'm better than the electric blanket." I pushed into her. That felt fucking fantastic.

"So much better" Sookie agreed.

We began moving and I tried to stay as quiet as possible, mainly to remove the possibility of Sookie complaining to me after Jason teased her. Sookie, however, seemed to have forgotten the whole 'be quiet' thing and was moaning quite pleasingly. Fuck, I thought, please don't let her regret this in the morning.

When she came, she was moaning at a reasonable volume. I tried to cover it up by kissing her, but she kept pulling back. I did my best, but there's only so much I could do. And then I came. I buried my face in her hair and moaned out a quiet "Oh, Sookie."

We lay there for a moment before I pulled us over to our sides. "Shit, Eric" she said. "You're really loud! Jason will have heard that."

I sighed. "I did my best" I said. "Anyway, you were pretty loud too."

"No, it was all you. I don't know why I let you talk me into this stuff. Or tickle me into it."

"You love it, really" I said.

She sighed. "Yeah I do, but now I have to get my pyjamas on before I get cold again. Do you remember where you threw everything?"

Yep, because it was all me. It always is.

**JAFA - is an acronym for 'Just another fucking Aucklander'. Yeah, we're not always that popular! Not to be confused with Jaffas which are sweets or candy that are round balls of chocolate coated in an orange hard candy coating. Yummy, and great for rolling down the aisles in cinemas.**

**The Tron - sometimes, that's what we call Hamilton. Don't know why. Hamilton is not known for being a centre of coolness. But at least it's not full of Jafa's!**

**Weetbix - our national cereal. I think I said before but it's like little bricks of flaky cardboard!**

**Kai Moana -(Ky Mow-ar-nah) Maori for seafood.**

**Thanks for reading!**


	4. Chapter 4

**A/N Hello! Melbourne Cup Day here! Sadly, I had no one to do a sweep with, if I try to get the baby to pick a piece of paper with a horse on it, she'll just eat the paper. And then dribble half-chewed paper down her front. So it's a bit of an anti-climax really!**

**Disclaimer: Not mine. **

SPOV

When I woke up I was in a really, lovely, snugly warm place. I was sandwiched between Eric, who was lying against my back, well, half on my back truth be told, and Bob, who was on top of the covers, curled up against my stomach. Now that it was winter Bob was back to wanting to sleep on the bed every night which caused a few problems when the bed's largest occupant kept trying to move him off. I felt a bit mean, it wasn't Bob's fault Eric was here now, so I tried to keep the pair of them apart as best I could. At the moment I was doing that really well.

But unfortunately I could hear people in the kitchen and I had to get up and see what was going on. I thought I would try to wriggle out of my warm spot without disturbing either Eric or Bob, which meant I had to go up the bed and climb out over the top of the pillows. Neither of them stirred. Well, after I got out they both stretched out a bit and I was amazed that I'd ever managed to fit between them. But they didn't wake up.

It was still raining and it was still cold, so I located my Ugg boots and dressing gown before heading to the bathroom, then on to the kitchen. As I got near I could hear Amelia telling Uncle Jase one of her never-ending stories "And then what happened was, the princess-witches they painted their castle black, so that was a funny colour for it, wasn't it? But they were trying to hide, from the bad witch. So the three princess-witches, Amelia, Evie and, um, the other Evie they made a cake. But it was a, um, diamond cake. Which is a funny kind of cake, but it's what they made. In their castle. The stove was pink, and purple. And they ate it all. Except for the bit that was leftovers. The leftovers were for, um, the dragons. They had five dragons. Their names were, um…Clodo, Dodo, Bobo, and um….so, they had three dragons. And then what happened was…"

"Morning" I said as I walked in. "Nice to see there's a heater on this morning." Jason didn't say anything, just pointed to Amelia, who said "I _told _him. I said that Mum puts the heater on, so you have to put the heater on. I had to tell him a lot!"

"Yeah, you have to with Uncle Jase sometimes, sweetheart."

"Jeez, a man can't cook with the two of you moaning on and on, eh?

"You're cooking? I thought you'd just trashed the kitchen. For the hell of it. What are you making?"

"Bacon and eggs!" Jason said proudly, pointing to a frypan.

"OK, well that's nice…" the kitchen was in a pretty bad state, but I'm sure I could put it back together. "Don't forget I want my bacon really crispy, like Dad used to have it."

"Yeah, fuck Sook! I know!"

"Don't say that. You're not supposed to say that. It is not a nice word. Eric says it and Mum says 'Don't say that Eric, it's not a nice word.' So don't say it. Because Mum says…" Amelia had jumped in at the opportunity to lecture someone properly in my name.

"OK, Amelia. I think he gets it" I said. Jason was pretty oblivious to what was going on. He was raking around in a drawer looking for something. I was about to ask him what he needed when there was a patter of feet down the hallway, followed by the larger feet who were giving chase. "Shit! She got away!" Eric called out, as Felicia raced into the family room at top speed.

Now Felicia was properly mobile, she took every opportunity to run off. It was hard to believe she was the same kid who just used to sit there wherever I plonked her, without showing any signs of movement. Now she wouldn't stay still. Eric really shouldn't have bothered buying her those Nikes, it just encouraged her.

Nappy changes were a disaster. Because of that we'd switched to using the 'nappy-pants' which weren't quite pull-ups, but which worked the same. Eric had one in his hand, along with Felicia's pyjama bottoms, but she obviously wasn't buying the idea of standing around long enough for him to actually change her.

But Eric and I had a bit of a routine going now. I went over to him and he chucked the clean nappy and the pyjama pants in my direction. Felicia made the fatal mistake of going into a corner, giggling all the while, so Eric grabbed her and held her up, while I whipped off the old nappy and replaced it with the new one and her pyjama bottoms. A few seconds later her feet were put back on the floor and she was off again. How on earth could someone be that perky in the mornings?

"Jeez, you guys are a good team, eh?" Jason commented. "If I had sheep instead of cows I might hire you to shear them or something."

"You don't have sheep?" Amelia asked, having forgotten the previous day's conversation.

"Nope" said Jason.

"Oh. Well how can you be a farmer then?" Amelia asked. But sadly everyone ignored her. That happens when you're four. And repeat yourself as though you're a hundred and four.

I came back from disposing of the old nappy to find Jason and Eric trying to share the kitchen, which looked kind of awkward, as it isn't the world's biggest kitchen. They were managing OK, Jason making breakfast and Eric making coffee until one of them stood on poor Bob and there was a terrible squeal and both of them yelled "Fuck!" at almost the same time, and Bob ran past me and out the cat door.

Amelia, who had been sitting on a stool at the breakfast bar, let out an exaggerated sigh. "You know" she said, "You guys shouldn't say that. It's not a nice word. Mum, they shouldn't say that, should they?"

"No" I agreed.

"Yeah, see! Mum said!"

"Uh-huh" Eric agreed half-heartedly, handing me a cup of coffee. Jason just stayed quiet. He looked like he was concentrating quite hard on whatever he was he was doing. I was leaving him to it. I knew better than to interrupt Jason when he was trying to get stuff done. Dad had been the same. You think they're pretty easy-going but if they're doing something that requires concentration, then all bets are off and it's best to just leave them to it.

Jason started putting food on plates so I sent Eric to round up Felicia and restrain her in the highchair. Felicia made a good show of getting away, but she forgets sometimes that Eric doesn't have to be standing too close to her to scoop her up. The long arms help. She let out a squeal of surprise and annoyance as she was lifted into the air and deposited into her seat.

Amelia looked over at her. "You shouldn't run, Leesha. That's _naughty_. Isn't she naughty, Mummy?"

"She's just little" I said.

"Your mum was worse, eh?" Jason added.

"I wasn't!" I said indignantly, as Jason handed me a plate of food. Amelia was watching the pair of us curiously, but I lifted her off the stool and sent her over to the table where Eric and Felicia were.

"Yeah, you were. Fuckin' ran off all the time. They tried putting one of those harness things on you, but it was a waste of fuckin' time because you just cried and cried. Jesus, I hated bloody going out with you when you were that age."

"Well thanks very much, Jason!" I said, feeling a bit grumpy.

Jason just shrugged. "It's how it was, eh? Hey, Sook, that frypan's rooted, eh? Think you'll have to get a new one."

"Fuck, Jason! What did you do to my frypan?"

"Dunno. It just went a bit…black, eh? Don't worry though; you're bound to find another one. On _sale_."

"Fuck up Jason" I hissed. Jason was the worst houseguest ever. He couldn't even cook breakfast without destroying my property. Granted, it was cheap frypan I'd been given by Lorena. It probably came from The Warehouse. But still, it was the principle of the thing.

I took the kid's food over to them, and then went back to get mine and Eric's. As I sat down next to him Eric looked over at my plate and then whispered "Do you want to swap?"

"What?" I asked, confused.

"You've got the really burnt bacon" he said. "I'll have it if you want. I don't mind."

"Oh. No, I've got the really crispy bacon, just the way I like it. Thank-you, but I'm good." I bit into a piece and a shower of crunchy, black bits of bacon hit the plate and turned almost to ash. Eric looked a bit disgusted but got on with eating his own food. It wasn't too bad. I guess Jason had spent enough time looking after himself over the years to be able to make a cooked breakfast.

As per usual Jason was finished first, even though he started last. He did not muck around when it came to eating. Amelia was picking at hers. "I don't like bacon" she said.

"Yeah, you do" Eric said, but unfortunately he said it at the same time Jason said "What's wrong with a good bit of pig?"

Amelia looked horrified. "It's pig?" she asked. "Like, really pig?"

"'Course" Jason said.

"But piggies are cute!" Amelia wailed. Yeah, I thought, but still I'm the only one who'll actually pat them when we go to Butterfly Creek.

"Yeah, and bacon's really tasty. Eat up!" Jason said cheerfully, not at all bothered that he was eating a cute piggy.

Amelia looked horrified, and close to tears. Eric looked a bit unsure about it all now he'd lost control of the situation, and he busied himself in feeding Felicia some scrambled eggs.

"Amelia, sweetheart, it's OK" I said. "Bacon's just…um, bacon. And you'll like it if you try it." I wasn't sure what the procedure was for not freaking out your daughter and turning her into a vegetarian.

"I don't WANT IT!" Amelia grumped at me.

"Fine" I said. I didn't want to get into an argument and force the issue. Jason raised his eyebrows at me, though. "Jeez, Sook. You let your kids get away with murder, eh?"

I didn't say anything, I just glared at Jason. It was all his stupid fault anyway, for speaking up in the first place. He should have just let Eric get on with it.

We finished up eating and I went to survey the mess in the kitchen. It wasn't the worst Jason had ever made, but I still couldn't quite understand why he'd had so many dishes out. I was returning the salt and pepper to the pantry when Eric arrived to help. Well I think that was his original intention anyway. He ended up pushing me into the corner of the kitchen and kissing me. Of course that was the point at which Jason arrived.

"Hey, mate! That's my baby sister, eh? Stop feelin' her up in the kitchen."

"Fuck off Jason" I muttered, as I stepped out from under Eric's arms. Eric just turned around and glared at Jason, who was oblivious.

"Don't be so touchy Sook. I could hear you last night, eh? Fuckin' hell, there was so much 'stop Eric' going on I thought I was going to have to step in." He laughed at his own joke, then picked up the frypan. "This is totally munted" he commented. I'd stopped caring about the frypan though. I was blushing like anything after Jason's comments, and just hissed "You, Jason, are the pig around here", before racing from the kitchen, leaving Eric still glaring at Jason.

I had a shower, trying to keep as far away from Jason as possible, and when I came out of the bathroom I refused to go and talk to him. It wasn't like he was any better. I remembered a particularly torturous camping trip we'd all gone on when I was first going out with Bill, when we'd been forced to listen to Jason and some girl he'd only just met going at it in the next tent. For hours. But of course he thinks it's perfectly OK to come into my house and comment on what he thinks is my sex life. Really it was just tickling. And he's to blame for that as well.

I wondered how long until he headed off back to Taranaki.

So I was hiding out in the kitchen when Jason came in. "Sorry, Sook" he said. I just about fell over. Jason almost never apologised to me. "Oh, well that's OK" I said, taken aback, and at a bit of a loss for words.

"Yeah, nah. Well, I shouldn't tease, eh? Right, I put my stuff in the ute so I'm just about to head off."

"OK. Well, I'll see you soon?" I hugged him quickly.

"Yeah. At Aunt Linda's party, eh? Should be a riot."

"Yeah, it will be interesting."

And then Jason went off and hugged each of the girls, after we caught Felicia again and after Amelia had quizzed him one more time about whether he only had cows. Thank God she hadn't cottoned on to the fact that we eat cows too. She gave him the picture she'd drawn for him. "Oh, cool" Jason said. "Um, is that me?"

"Yeah" Amelia said. "And those are cows."

"And that's the bull?"

"No! That's the _dragon_." Amelia rolled her eyes. Even she could see Uncle Jase wasn't the quickest to catch on to stuff.

"Oh. Right-o. Thank-you Ames." He stuffed it in his pocket.

Jason shook Eric's hand, called out "See you jokers later, eh?" and then ran through the rain to his ute. We all stood there and waved and then I closed the door, and breathed a sigh of relief. "Thank goodness that's over" I said to no one in particular.

Someone in particular wanted more details though. "What's over, Mummy?" Amelia asked.

"The visit. It's, um, hard to have visitors sometimes."

"Oh, well I like Uncle Jase. Except he says he's a farmer, but he only has cows. And he eats pigs. So he must be something else, mustn't he Mummy?"

"Um, no. He's, um, a sharemilker."

"Oh. Well that's not a farmer, is it?"

"Kind of…" I said, but Amelia had stomped off, having made her point.

I turned to Eric. "What did you do to Jason?" I asked.

Eric did his best to look innocent. "Nothing."

"Hmmm, I know you did something. Jason doesn't just apologise like that, out of the blue. So thank you, I guess." I kissed him. "And thanks for putting up with him in total, he's a pain in the bum, but I'm stuck with him."

"Yeah, he's not so bad."

"You're just saying that, safe in the knowledge he's driving far, far away from here as we speak."

Eric didn't say anything to that, just smiled. Yeah, Jason was OK, but it was also kind of nice when he left.

EPOV

I'd been worried about Jason teasing Sookie and true to form he had to open his big mouth and make her run from the kitchen in embarrassment. Jason just watched her go and then went back to examining the frying pan he'd managed to murder in the process of making Sookie's bacon. "Totally rooted" he muttered to himself, putting it to one side.

"Jason" I said, to get his attention. "I think maybe you want to apologise to Sookie."

"What? Oh she's alright, eh? Sook can take a joke."

"I think that was a bit close to the bone. She's upset, and you should apologise."

He frowned. "Nah, she'll be right, mate. It'll blow over. Trust me, I know my sister." I had no doubt there were a lot of things he did know about Sookie, from the fact she liked her bacon to be basically charcoal, to the fact she once reversed a boat over a letterbox, but it was pretty obvious that he couldn't tell when he'd really upset her. Or maybe he just didn't care. But Sookie cared. So I cared.

"Jason" I tried again, coming to lean against the kitchen counter next to where he was standing. "I really think you should apologise to Sookie before you go."

"Yeah? Or what?" And there it was. I could see the fucking family resemblance. None of them ever fucking listened to me. They all had that annoying streak of defiance.

But even so, I didn't really want to threaten him. There'd be no way back from that. Maybe he'd listen to reason. "Jason, I think Sookie was actually kind of upset about what you said, and I'm sure that you want to part on good terms today, so really, an apology would work wonders."

"Well, I guess. But it seems a bit pointless, eh? She'll just be pissed off about something else I do in about five minutes."

"Just fucking apologise Jason. Just fucking apologise and be nice to Sookie for the rest of the time you're here. I don't want to have to deal with the fallout when you leave if she's still upset."

Jason thought that over. "Oh, yeah. Well, yeah, that would be kind of fuckin' stink for you, eh? If she's pissy all day. And then you won't be gettin' any tonight either, I guess. Yeah, OK. When you put it like that, I'll do it for you, mate. 'Cos fuck knows, us blokes, we've got to stick together, eh? When Crystal's fuckin' pissed off it's a nightmare. I've just to hope that Wayne does something really fuckin' out there, so he'll take the heat off me." Jason laughed and walked off to pack up his stuff.

Well, that was hard work, I thought, but I think I got there. Now Jason just had to apologise, leave and the rest of us could get on with our lives.

Thankfully he did actually follow through with his apology. Sookie looked a bit stunned by the whole thing. I guessed maybe Jason really didn't normally apologise to her.

And it was nice when he left; the house was suddenly a lot quieter and a lot less crowded. Although it was still raining and it was still cold and we were all still stuck inside. I left Sookie with the kids and went to reclaim the spare room and try to do some work.

SPOV

After Jason left we were left with a wet day to fill in. Eric went off to do some work in the study. He'd been able to set up his own consulting work as a result of going to some more of those really boring talks the bank kept inviting him to. And then some of the bank's customers wanted him to help them out, and he was able to make it snowball from there. He sat on it all for a while though, until he was sure it was going to work out. And of course he was still working out of the house, which was sometimes good because it meant I could leave him in charge of Felicia if I wanted to go to Pak N Save, but it also meant he spent a lot of time trying to work while someone stood next to him going "UP! UP!" and holding out her arms to be picked up.

I was loving the whole Jumping Beans thing, although it was a steep learning curve. You think it's all going to be dancing around and providing children with lots of fun activities. Then you find out you have to learn about spatial awareness and the correct way to teach a kid to do a forward roll. Luckily when we'd bought the franchise I'd inherited the assistant, Irene, and she was lovely. And knew what she was doing. I'd thought of offering Judith a job too, but she was currently pregnant and probably better off working out her time in her current job before coming to work with me. Yeah, she and Calvin had not wasted anytime after the wedding trying for another baby and she was due in December.

So while Eric was working in the study I was in charge of Felicia and Amelia. I decided to try out some new songs and activities on them; they were great guinea pigs for Jumping Beans, even if Amelia did insist to people now that her mummy taught babies to jump.

Then when Felicia had her nap Amelia and I did some baking, and made some chocolate chip biscuits and some coconut ice, with particularly garish pink icing.

Wet days are hard work.

Thankfully Eric came out of the study in the afternoon, probably lured by the smell of what we'd baked. It was easier when there was the same number of adults as children. I wondered how Jason and Crystal coped with three kids. I should have maybe asked him while he was here.

But we got through the day, we always do somehow. Luckily after all these months Eric is still a good sport about playing stupid games with the kids. He doesn't mind being a dragon, or a prisoner, or the sole occupant of Amelia's class when she announced that she was the teacher and it was mat-time. I think Felicia was supposed to be involved in that game too, but it involved sitting still so she wasn't really interested. I found her hauling stuff out of the hot-water cupboard instead.

Eric was also still really happy to be a hand and foot warmer. Well he wasn't complaining quite as much as he had at the beginning of winter. After dinner we sat and watched TV for a bit. I stuck my hands under Eric's t-shirt and he flinched a bit. "They're not _that_ cold" I said.

"Yep, they're really cold. How does a person even get that cold? And still be functioning?" Eric asked.

I shrugged. I thought I was quite normal. Eric definitely didn't seem to be as cold though. He was wearing tracksuit pants, but he still only had a t-shirt on. No sweatshirt or anything. Bizarre.

My hands warmed up, but I didn't move them. I really quite liked the feel of Eric's skin. I liked running my hands over his stomach, the skin was soft but you could feel the muscle under there. It was so different from the way I was built, it was fascinating. And very, very sexy.

So I started to move my hands around, lightly brushing Eric's abdomen, and when one of my hands ghosted over his side, he flinched again. "They've warmed up _now_" I said.

"Mmm" Eric agreed. I started moving my hands again, but when I went over the same spot he didn't exactly flinch this time, but I could feel that he sort of, stiffened. Only a tiny bit, but there was movement all the same.

After it happened for the third time I knew what I was on to. "Eric" I said. "Are you ticklish?"

"Nope" he said, obviously lying through his teeth.

I brushed my fingertips over his side and he shifted away from me. "You so are!" I said. "Don't lie to me!"

"I'm not lying!" Eric said grumpily. "Anyway, didn't you want to watch this?" He gestured to the British costume drama we'd been watching on TV, trying to draw my attention away from him.

"No, that won't work" I said, trying to lift his t-shirt up so I could get better access.

"What _are_ you doing there?" Eric asked, trying to push my hands away.

"Investigating. So move your hands away." I tried to peel his hands off his t-shirt but that was a losing battle. "Come _on_" I cajoled. "Just tell me. I promise I won't do anything with the information."

Eric looked like he didn't really believe me. "I'm not you!" I said. "I don't do that sort of thing." Eric was trying to lean away from me and I'd practically climbed on top of him in an effort to get my hands back under his t-shirt. He was hiding that he was ticklish from me. And I was determined to find out.

So for the next couple of minutes I fought a losing battle trying to get back to Eric's ticklish spots. Well, the spots I thought were ticklish. Eric slid further down the couch until he was lying on his back and I ended up straddling his stomach. "Ah-ha!" I cried triumphantly. "See now I've got you pinned!" With that Eric grabbed both my wrists in one hand and held them away from him. My triumph turned to annoyance. "Bugger!" There wasn't much I could about that, I wriggled my wrists around but he had a pretty firm grip. I was kind of stuck.

"Um" I said. "What do we do now?"

"Well if I let go of your hands, are you going to tickle me?" Eric asked. I nodded enthusiastically. Of course I was. It was only fair I got to exact revenge. "Then I guess we're stuck like this" he said. And he turned his head to the side to watch TV.

"But it's not much…fun" I grumbled. I was keen on getting my hands back.

"Nope."

"Fine! I won't tickle you then."

"Good. But it wouldn't work anyway. I'm not ticklish. It's just you have cold, ghost-like fingers which sent shivers down my spine."

"Uh-huh. Good story. You haven't let go of my wrists, though."

"Still not sure I trust you."

"Go on, I'm so trustworthy!" I smiled to show just how trustworthy I was.

"Sookie, you look like the fucking cat that got the cream. Of course I don't trust you."

"OK, then. If I can have my hands back, no tickling. At all."

"Promise?"

"Yep."

Eric let go of my wrists. And then he tickled me. "Hey! No tickling, remember?" I squirmed around, trying to shake his hands off.

"Yeah, that was about you tickling me. We didn't agree anything about me tickling you. Shift down a bit further, because all that wriggling is fucking fantastic."

"God, you're a perv, Eric" I muttered. I was really busy trying to get away from him. I twisted too far though and almost fell off the couch. Luckily Eric's arm shot out and steadied me.

"Thank-you" I said, breathlessly. It was hard work trying to avoid being tickled.

"Anytime." Eric was watching my boobs go up and down with my breathing.

"Enjoying the view?" I asked.

"Might be better without the clothing" Eric said, lifting my t-shirt off me and unhooking my bra. I was over fighting him off for the night so I just let him. I pulled his t-shirt up so he could take it off. Obviously I was allowed to touch him again too.

"So, couch sex then?" I asked, as Eric latched onto one of my breasts.

"Yeah. The heater's already on so you won't moan about getting cold."

"OK, well that's a good point then." I reached over to grab the remote and turn the TV off, which wasn't easy as Eric wasn't giving up his hold on me easily.

Eric was right; it wasn't too bad getting naked in the living room with the heater on. Although he was definitely helping my temperature increase. I stood up to take off my tracksuit pants while Eric stayed on the couch and just kicked his off. When I straddled him again he sat up and kissed me while I rubbed myself against his penis. Eric moaned and I lifted up onto my knees so he could position himself at the right place before I sank back down. I still loved that feeling, the one where Eric first entered me. It felt wonderful.

I started to rock back and forth, kissing Eric at the same time. His hand ran down my side, up to the side of my breast and back down again. Then he tickled me. Just a little bit. So I squirmed. Just a little bit.

"Oh, yeah. That's good" Eric said.

"Good squirming, huh?" I asked.

"Yeah, just wanted to give it a try." I tensed up in case Eric did it again, but he seemed to have moved past that idea. Instead he swung his legs off the couch to plant his feet on the floor and get more leverage. With a hand on each of my hips he starting thrusting up into me, with a faster rhythm than we'd had before.

One of his hands moved so his thumb could find my clit. I held onto his shoulders, pressed my breasts against his chest, and came, just before Eric did.

I dropped my head to rest against Eric's shoulder and he held me tight. But my temperature was dropping off and I shivered. Eric grabbed the cat-furry rug and covered us both up. "Thank-you" I said.

"Well, I don't want you getting cold. I'll never hear the end of it."

"Yeah, but, um…" I looked Eric in the eyes. "Thanks for this weekend too. For putting up with Jason and his shit. He's OK, but he's just a bit much sometimes. He doesn't seem to have a filter."

Eric shrugged. "He's OK. I got to find out all sorts of stuff about you."

"Yeah, you did I guess. Still, the tickling thing will have to be a truce I guess."

"Except that I'm not ticklish."

"Whatever, Eric."

"But I don't know about letting you reverse into the driveway anymore. I really like that wall."

"I think the wall is fine. It was a big boat on that trailer! And I jack-knifed it. But I know how to do it now!"

Eric chuckled. "It was interesting to find out all that stuff about you."

"Mmm, I guess I never get to find out about you, do I?"

"Nope. No one to tell you anything. I've killed all the witnesses to my youth." Eric laughed, but really, for all I was ever going to find out, he might as well have.

"Well, whatever you were like. I like the you that you are now, anyway" I said.

"Yeah, and I like you too. You wouldn't be you if you hadn't survived a childhood with Jason." Eric stood up, still holding me. I was still amazed he could do that. I wasn't light. "And if you could reverse a trailer with a boat on it."

"I can! Buy a boat and I'll prove I can!"

Eric didn't say anything; he just laughed and carried me off to bed.

**Thanks for reading!**


	5. Chapter 5

**A/N Right, took me a while to write this chapter! If you check out my profile I've posted some links that are relevant to this chapter, you can see the t-shirts Sookie and Eric are wearing, and there's links to the songs mentioned. I also found a Kiwi slang to American dictionary,which I thought might be useful in case I forget to explain anything, and there's a link to an L&P advert that kind of celebrates a particular section of Kiwi men, the ones who like to do nothing much!**

**Disclaimer: Not mine. I just brought some of them back from the dead to party!**

SPOV

Eric looked down at his t-shirt. "Explain why I'm wearing this again?" I sighed. I really wished he would give this a rest.

"Because it's a Kiwiana party. For some reason, only known to the three brain-cells that inhabit Hadley's brain, the party has a theme. But we're not dressing up. So this will have to do." No one was going to be dressed up, I thought, because we're Kiwis and it's just not us.

"I just don't get what a giraffe has to do with New Zealand?" Eric looked really puzzled.

"It's iconic. All the milkshake cups always have that logo on them. Trust me."

Eric sighed. "Yours is slightly better" he said. Yep, I'd picked a tiki tour one which was better, but really, he should have cared more about it when I was ordering them if he wanted to moan now.

"Well, no one's going to really notice anyway as you're going to have to wear a jacket. Just be thankful l didn't stick you in a black singlet or something."

"How would that relate to New Zealand?"

"Traditional outfit of the farmer, black singlet and shorts. And gumboots. It's probably what Jason will be wearing. So you know, you're not too badly off."

"Um, OK. If you say so then."

I pulled my jacket on over my t-shirt. August was really a dumb month to be having a party in a basement. In Papatoetoe. I sighed. I didn't really want to go. Eric probably definitely didn't want to go. The only one who had wanted to go was Amelia, but she and Felicia were staying with Tara for the night as I didn't think they needed to be out late watching people get drunk.

Yeah, I'd done this before. I knew the drill. As we hit the motorway I said to Eric "Whatever you do, don't drink the punch."

"OK."

"Yeah, you never know what Uncle Trevor will have put in it. He just uses whatever he can find. I think his worst concoction was orange and mango juice, cold tea, Sprite and Midori. It was _disgusting_. And a really funny brown colour. Jason drank heaps of it and spewed all over Aunty Linda's garden. Not pretty."

"OK."

"And they're bound to tell you you're American, and that you're tall. Because you know, they're not the world's most interesting conversationalists so they tend to go for the obvious."

"Uh-huh."

"And you'll have to take whatever they say about me with a grain of salt, because God knows, they're bound to want to embarrass me. Sometimes they're a bit evil."

"Your relatives are evil?"

"Well, not really evil, just, you know…they like to make fun of me. They think I'm amusing. Because, you know, I'm not one of them."

"You're not?"

"No! God no. I'm nothing like Aunty Linda and Hadley. That's why I never see them. Because we have nothing in common. Other than the fact we're related by blood. But that doesn't mean we have to like hanging out. So we don't."

"OK."

We pulled off the motorway and started driving through Mangere. Yeah, this was all a bit different for Eric. He was used to the nicer bits of Auckland. Not the streets of South Auckland.

I gave Eric directions and we turned to drive past Middlemore. "That's the hospital I was born in" I said as we crawled past its front entrance.

"Really?"

"Yeah. It was built by the US Army during the war, and then they sold it to us when they left. So there you go, there's a bit of history for you."

Eric didn't say anything else and I was quiet apart from telling him where to turn. I really wasn't sure about going to this party. Mostly I was just here so I wasn't missing out on something. The fact that Hadley had tracked Jason down and not me rankled. Granted they'd been in the same year at school and both fairly popular, so they probably had more in common, but still. Linda was my aunt too.

And I'd spent a lot of my life being left out of stuff by Jason and Hadley.

It was pretty easy to spot which house was having the party when we got there. The cars all over the front lawn were a dead giveaway, as was the sound of the music as we pulled up. Eric got out of the car and looked around. Aunty Linda lived in the nicer part of Papatoetoe, with a house that overlooked the golf course and which had been flash, when it had been built in the '70's anyway. But even so, this was South Auckland, and it was a bit different to Mt Eden.

We walked up the driveway and I knocked on the door. I vaguely remembered the guy who opened it. "Tony?" I said, with a bit of hesitation. I'm pretty sure that was his name, and that this was indeed, Hadley's partner. Or maybe it was one of his brothers. I hoped it wasn't one of his brothers.

"Hey, Sookie!" he said, enthusiastically. I guessed I'd been right then. "Come on in!"

"Um, this is Eric. Eric, this is Tony. He's Hadley's partner." Eric shook Tony's hand and then we were introduced to a couple of Tony's brothers who were hovering behind him. Elijah and Ephraim. Eric was polite, but kind of quiet. I guessed he was used to being the tallest person in the room, and probably not to coming face to face with a bunch of Tongan blokes who were not only as tall as he was but about three times as broad.

We walked into the downstairs rumpus room. It was cold, as the doors were open into the back garden. I could hear a Shihad song playing in the background. Boy, I thought, I haven't listened to them in forever. As predicted I had yet to see any real costumes. Tony was wearing an All Blacks rugby shirt, but his brothers just seemed to be in their normal clothes. Then Aunty Linda bustled over. "Sookie!" she shrieked. "How are you, love? Are you OK? I'm so glad you're here." She gave me a big hug and a kiss on the cheek, without putting down either her cigarette or her rum and coke. "Did you bring the girls?"

"No, they're a bit little for a party…"

"Well, they could have slept upstairs. That's where Had's putting her little ones, they'd have been fine."

"They're not really used to that sort of thing." Yeah, not like Jason and I were. Not that my parents partied a lot, but I remembered having to try to go to sleep in a strange room, and then waking up when Dad carried me to the car and wondering where the hell I was.

Aunty Linda shrugged. Then she spotted Eric. "Hi" she said, kind of breathlessly. I rolled my eyes. I wondered if it would be rude to shout to Uncle Trev that he needed to pull his wife off my fiancé.

"This is Eric, my fiancé" I said.

Aunty Linda frowned. "Really? Fuck, that's um…well, that's great. Good for you Sookie." Yeah, you can talk, I thought. While I was smiling inanely at her. Aunty Linda smiled at Eric "Hi Eric, nice to meet you!" she said brightly.

"Hi" he said.

"Wow! He's American!" Aunt Linda announced, grabbing Eric's arm with the hand that was still holding the cigarette. I realised I should have been betting on how long it would take before someone said that. Eric just stood there, trying to pretend he wasn't an object of curiosity. "So where did you find him?" Aunty Linda asked me, still holding onto Eric and kind of rubbing his arm.

"Um, at work. I had a job in an office for a while, and, um, Eric was there too. From the States, so, well, yeah."

"Oh, OK. Well nice to meet you Eric." She flashed him another huge smile and finally let go of his arm. "You guys just go and sort yourselves out for drinks, eh? I think Jason's around here somewhere too. I better go and see what Trev's doing to the punch." And then she was off.

Eric frowned. "I see what you mean" he said.

"About what?" Here it comes, I thought, he's going to tell me exactly what a slapper Aunty Linda is.

"About the, um, theme. Or whatever it is. I guess your Aunt's dressed up like the woman in Outrageous Fortune, isn't she? The one with the low-cut tops and the leopard print."

"Um. No. No, that's just how Aunty Linda dresses all the time. I'm not sure she's really bought into Hadley's party idea at all."

"Oh. Oh, OK." Eric looked more confused than ever before. Yeah, I was related to people who dressed like stereotypical TV characters. Yay for me.

I realised I hadn't given Aunty Linda the present we'd bought for her, so I looked around and found a pile of other presents and added it to that.

Just then Hadley bounced over. Literally bounced. "Hi, Had" I said, "Where'd you get the cheerleading costume?" She was dressed as one of the Auckland Blues cheerleaders. Why, I don't know. She might have had a rugby team's logo plastered on her boobs, but really, she couldn't have picked anything more American than a cheerleader's uniform. Or sluttier, the way she'd poured herself into it.

"Oh, I borrowed it from a friend, eh? I like your, um…t-shirt, Sook. Very, um, Kiwi." She made a face which suggested that she didn't in fact like it at all. "Is this your new boyfriend?"

"Fiancé. Eric, this is Hadley." I seriously wished she would go and bounce somewhere else far away from me. And Eric. Particularly that she would take her slutty, trollopy arse far away from him.

"Hel-loo! Nice to meet you!" She shook Eric's hand then turned back to me. "So um, drinks are over there. Nibbles will be out soon. I've organised the music, so we've got all Kiwi music, except that Mum is trying to put some Neil Diamond on, but that does not go with the theme of this party, so she just needs to learn to back off. So have a great time!" She flashed us a smile and bounced off. I sighed. This was going to be a long night.

EPOV

Sookie had been tense all day in the lead-up to this party. Actually she'd been a bit tense for about a week. Unfortunately I'd been so busy worrying about Sookie that I hadn't really noticed the whole t-shirt thing. Fuck. And now I was stuck wearing a t-shirt with a fucking giraffe on it. I wasn't even a Kiwi, so I didn't know how that worked. At least it wasn't a costume. No one much seemed to be in a costume. Except for the cousin with the vague resemblance to Sookie who was wearing a cheerleader's costume. I didn't know that had even been an option. Sookie would have looked fucking fantastic as a cheerleader.

The aunt who looked like Sookie though was a bit terrifying. I really wanted to stay way the fuck away from her if I could help it.

Sookie led me over to the table where the drinks had been put out. There was an older guy with a moustache pouring something into a punchbowl. Whatever it was, the result looked nasty. Sookie had been right when she'd said stay away from the punch.

"Hi, Uncle Trev" Sookie said to the guy. "Are you adding L&P to this one?"

"Yeah, thought I might, eh? Just to give it a bit of taste. So how are you, love?"

"Pretty good. Yeah. This is Eric, by the way." I shook hands with the guy and then he went back to adding stuff into the punch. I grabbed a Coke for myself and made Sookie a gin and tonic while she continued to talk to Uncle Trev. Then he went off to do something else and it was just Sookie and I. She held her drink and stood really close to me. I wondered how long until the being polite thing was up and we could go home.

SPOV

They may have been my family but I didn't really feel like I belonged here. I had been out of the loop for too long. I hadn't even been to Aunty Linda's 50th birthday party as I'd been living in the UK. So I guess the last time I really did this was her 40th. But it never changed. Although I had no idea who most of these people were.

So Eric and I stood close to the drinks table, not saying much. I could tell he was waiting for me to take the lead and I just didn't know what to do. I guessed we could go and find Jason but I wasn't sure that was such a great idea either. It would be entertaining for two minutes then he'd piss me off and I'd want to go home. And it was really too early to go home, we'd only just got here.

And then Aunty Linda swung past. "Are you guys alright?" she asked, once again laying a hand on Eric's arm.

"Yeah, we're good" I said, a bit distracted. I was still scanning the room. And suddenly I saw a face I really didn't expect to see at all.

"Hey, Aunty Linda, is Aunty Claudine here?" I asked.

"Yeah. Yeah she was up from Wellington, so she and Colman called in. It's nice to see her; I can't remember the last time she was here." Aunty Linda looked at me and I wasn't sure if that was a dig at me too. Aunty Claudine didn't really belong here either. For one thing she was from the other side of the family; she was Mum's sister so she was a Brigant before she got married. But mostly she didn't belong here because she'd got out. She and Colman had a nice house in Karori and a courier company that made them a lot of money. I'd spent a lot of my childhood idolising Aunty Claudine. She was gorgeous and polished and everything I really wanted to be when I grew up.

"I didn't realise you guys were that close" I said to Aunty Linda.

"Oh, well, you know. When we were young we all used to hang around together. That's how your mum and dad met, really." Well that made sense, I guessed. Aunty Linda finally managed to prise her claws off Eric and went off to help Hadley bring out the food. I dragged Eric over to see Aunty Claudine.

"Hi Aunty Claudine!" I called out, as she stood up to hug me. Immaculate as always Claudine had not dressed up in any kind of costume or theme or anything else. I couldn't blame her. It was a bit of a lame idea of Hadley's.

"Sookie! I'm so glad to see you. I was so sorry I couldn't make Bill's funeral, but we were in Hong Kong and it was just too hard to get back."

"Oh. Yeah, well that's OK." Jeez, I thought, that seemed like years ago. Claudine looked at Eric and I realised it was my cue to introduce him. Well, this is going to be awkward after she just brought up Bill. I took a deep breath and went ahead with it. Sure enough Aunty Claudine's eyes got a little bit wider when I said the word fiancé, but she was too far polite to do more than that. There were handshakes all round, including with a very bored looking Colman, and Eric and I sat down in a pair of plastic garden chairs next to Claudine and Colman.

"So, Eric. Whereabouts in the States are you from?" Aunty Claudine asked. I guessed that was a variation on telling him that he is American.

"California" Eric said. He was never very keen on elaborating on that.

"Oh. Right. Well it's very nice there. I like Santa Barbara. Colman, remember the time we drove down the coast a few years back? That was lovely wasn't it?"

Colman didn't say anything; he just nodded and surreptitiously glanced at his watch. And then we did the usual small-talk. I asked about her kids (both at University now), she asked about my kids. We talked about work, Aunty Claudine was very polite while listening to me trying to explain Jumping Beans, but I could tell she really thought I was a kind of glorified nanny. Colman perked up a bit when Eric's consulting business got mentioned and he spent a while trying to get free advice out of him.

After a while the conversation dried up and we found ourselves listening to Aunty Claudine tell us all about the new Audi Colman had bought her for her birthday. Colman looked bored again. Maybe I didn't have quite as much in common with these two as I thought. Aunty Linda and Hadley had put the food out so I suggested to Eric we go and get something to eat.

Sure enough as soon as we approached the table Jason just about knocked us over in his rush to get to the food. "Fuck, Sook! I didn't realise you guys were here, eh?" he said, in way of a greeting.

"Yeah, we've been talking to Aunty Claudine."

"I wanted to go over there, but she keeps giving me the evils, eh?"

"It's probably because you haven't rinsed your gumboots off. Jesus, Jason. You reek!" As predicted Jason had just dressed as he would for work; black singlet with a checked bushshirt over it, ripped shorts and his gumboots. Which were slightly smelly.

Jason just shrugged and started loading his plate with food. Just then a really gorgeous, and tiny, girl with long dark hair and caramel skin came over. "Are you going to introduce me, Jason?" she asked.

"Oh, uh, yeah" Jason said, a bit taken aback. "This is Crystal. Crystal, this is my sister Sookie and, um, Eric."

"He's my fiancé" I said to Crystal as she leaned in and kissed me on the cheek. "Kia Ora Sookie" she murmured. Then she did the same to Eric. I saw she'd had my idea as well and had opted for a t-shirt rather than a costume, only her t-shirt had the Maori flag on it. I'd been intimidated by countless numbers of Jason's girlfriends over the years, but possibly this was the first time I felt that way because it was possible she was far more politically aware than I was.

Then Crystal turned to Jason. "Fuck, Jase!" she said. "You can't eat all the fuckin' sausage rolls; other people will want some food too."

Reluctantly Jason pulled his hand away from the pile of sausage rolls. "Fuck off, Crys" he said. "Anyway, I'm just saving Chubs there from herself, eh?" He gestured to me. "They're her weakness. Fuck, the back of Mum's car used to be covered in fuckin' sausage roll pastry crumbs. I'm surprised she's not the size of the fuckin' car by now, eh?"

Crystal glared at Jason. I glared at Jason. Jason looked a bit bewildered at what was going on. "Kai a te ahi! Don't fuckin' talk to your sister like that, Jason. Now take your food and go and sit down." Jason did as he was told, muttering to me that he was sure I could take a joke as he went past. I decided I quite liked Crystal.

After they'd gone I turned to Eric "Jeez! No wonder Jason was so happy to stay with us, I think he's on a pretty short leash at home!"

"Yeah" Eric said thoughtfully, examining the food and obviously debating in his head whether it was a good idea to give marmite sandwiches with potato chips in them a go. "I guess maybe they're good for each other?"

"Well, I can't imagine Jason being good for anyone, but yeah, maybe Crystal's good for him. I'll give you that."

We took the food and drifted outside to sit at a table with Jason and Crystal. It was freezing cold. They were playing The Black Seeds now though, which just made me think of summer and how this was really not the time of year to hold a party like this.

We made some more small talk and Crystal told me about her kids. I told her about mine and Jason interjected to tell Crystal just how bossy Amelia was and how she got it all from me. Yeah, thanks Jase, I thought. Crystal took it in her stride though.

Then Hadley and Tony joined us along with their 7 year old daughter Lita who was in her pyjamas and looking rather tired. I braced myself waiting to see what stories were going to come out about me, but Hadley and Jason were remarkably OK. In fact the worst thing Jason did was tell Eric he'd better watch me after we found out that Tony was driving a concrete truck these days.

"Why's that?" Eric asked.

"'Cos when she was little she was fuckin' obsessed with concrete mixers, eh? 'Cept she couldn't say it properly. So she'd just chant 'oncrete 'ixer every time she saw one out the car window."

"Yeah" I agreed. "Well you gave me that Matchbox one where the barrel turned when you pushed it along. I loved that thing to death."

Eric looked at me. "You loved a…toy concrete mixer?"

"Passionately. It was one of the best toys I ever had." I guess because it had been Jason's first or something.

Eric looked at me like I was weird, but I didn't care. I'm pretty sure Jason understood the appeal of it.

After we'd finished eating Eric and Jason drifted off to get some more drinks and Aunty Linda came over. "So how are you going, love?" she asked me. "You've had a rough couple of years, eh?"

"Oh. Yeah. I guess. It's OK now though." I glanced over to where Eric was standing with Jason and Tony.

Aunty Linda patted my arm. "It's tough, eh? But we get through it." She lit a cigarette and sat back in her chair.

"Yep, we get through it" Hadley said, leaning over to pinch one of her mum's cigarettes and earning herself a glare in the process. She just pulled a face at Aunty Linda, who a few seconds later, tossed her lighter over the table to Hadley.

I looked at the pair of them, puffing away in the night air. Hadley's dad had disappeared when she was only little, no one knew where he went. A few years later Uncle Trev had appeared. From Christchurch. There were rumours that he still had a wife and kids stashed somewhere, but there'd never been any evidence of it. And I guessed he'd been here for well over 30 years now so he was probably staying.

Hadley's eldest son Hunter, who I hadn't seen yet tonight, didn't have a father at all. Not even listed on his birth certificate. Although he was probably the skinny guy with the stringy hair and the drug habit that had been living in the same squat as Hadley just before Aunty Linda and Uncle Trev had dragged her back home and discovered she was up the duff. That was how the family gossip went anyway.

Then I had a thought. Shit, I'd spent years and years thinking I was somehow, well, better than Aunty Linda and Hadley. After all, I had an education. I'd lived overseas. I'd actually married someone. Before having a baby with him.

But none of us could actually keep the fathers of our kids around, could we? All of us were bringing up our kids with other guys. Fuck, I was clearly one of them. There was some gene that made the Stackhouse women inexplicably drive men away after we had their kids. God knows how we were all descended from Gran. At least she'd stayed with the father of her children.

Just then Jason arrived back with drinks for Crystal and himself. But no Eric. He seemed to still be talking to Tony. Oh well. The song playing changed and Jason leaned over to me. "Hey, Sook! It's that song you like, eh? Fuck, you used to play this all the fuckin' time. Drove me nearly bloody insane."

I listened to what it was. Straitjacket Fits. Yeah, I had liked this song. Mainly though I'd liked Straitjacket Fits for the same reason I used to like Shihad. Because my boyfriend liked them. I was such an idiot for thinking I was doing better than the rest of the family by throwing in my lot with Bill. I glanced over at Aunty Claudine. Yeah, she and Colman did not look like they were having a good time. Colman looked almost exactly like Bill did when he had to come within fifty metres of my family.

Fuck it, I thought. I should just accept who I was and get on with it. Hadley handed me a glass of what was probably the punch. I downed it. It was the punch. It was nasty. But at least there was no Midori in this batch.

Jason went to crank the music up; I think they were playing The Datsuns now. He and Hadley started an impromptu mosh-pit down the back of the garden. I thought it might be fun to go and join them. After all, these were my people.

EPOV

I got back from fetching more drinks to find Sookie had vanished from the table and I was left with the scary aunt who looked like Sookie instead. Fuck. I wondered where she'd gone.

I didn't get a chance to look for her though because Aunt Linda sent me off to find her another rum and coke and Sookie wasn't anywhere near the drinks table. I almost thought I heard her say "Oh, honestly Jason!" but when I turned around it wasn't Sookie. It was the dark-haired aunt who didn't look like her. But she sure as fuck sounded like Sookie.

I asked Jason where Sookie was and he pointed out into the garden, as his mouth was stuffed full of food.

I delivered the drink to Aunt Linda, who looked a bit annoyed that I didn't sit back down, and then I went to find Sookie. There were a group of people dancing and she was in the middle of them. "Eric!" she yelled. "Come and dance with me!"

Well, at least she wasn't crying this time I thought.

SPOV

The dancing cheered me up no end. As they were playing Dance Stamina, Hadley leaned over and said "Remember how we used to dance around to the radio? When your mum looked after me sometimes?"

Yeah, I did. That was one of the nicer memories I had of spending time with Hadley. Aunty Linda and Uncle Trev had owned a fish and chip shop for a while and on the evenings Aunty Linda had worked Hadley had come home with Jason and I. We'd put on the radio and she'd teach me to dance. I really loved that. I tried not to think about the fact she'd turned her dance skills into an occupation when she'd been a stripper for a while.

"You were always a really good dancer" Hadley said to me. I waited for the insult to come, but she didn't say anything else. Maybe she was finally past tormenting me. I guessed we were all getting older. Hadley and Jason were heading towards 40, which was a really scary thought. When I was with Hadley I still felt like I was about 14 and she was the cool one, the one who knew how to dress, how to act. How to talk to boys.

I couldn't remember when I'd stopped wanting to be her and switched to wanting to be anything but her, but it had most likely coincided with Hadley going off the rails. But now we probably had the most in common we had for years, we were both mothers and we'd both had our problems and come out the other side. Who'd have thought?

When Eric showed up sometime during Buck it Up, I called him over to dance with me. He looked a bit bemused, but complied. Jason had come back and was doing his impersonation of a pogo stick. Crystal rolled her eyes at him, but joined in.

Tony came over to dance with Hadley when they were playing some Fat Freddy's Drop. Kind of inspired by Tony and his brothers who were dancing somewhere on the edge of the circle, I let out one of my secrets. I knew a few Polynesian dance moves.

When we were at High School, Tara had got the bright idea of joining the Culture Club in order to meet boys from the First XV. It hadn't worked out that way, but we'd spent a couple of years being the token palagi girls in the club learning Samoan dances. It was a lot of fun. But it wasn't something I did very often.

However, when you're in South Auckland, it kind of fits. Eric just stood there and watched me. "What?" I asked him.

"Nothing. I just…where'd you learn to do that? Move your hips like that?"

"Oh. School. Lunchtimes mostly. You didn't learn Samoan dancing at school?"

"Um. No."

I shrugged. "Your loss then, Yank."

The music changed again and all of sudden Eric pulled me close to him. A much slower song was playing now, one I didn't really recognise. I guessed Jason and Crystal did though, as they were busy singing the words to each other.

I put my head on Eric's chest. "You OK?" he whispered to me.

"Yeah. Yeah, I'm fine." I was. I felt surprisingly OK. Considering I'd had about 3 glasses of punch by that stage. It was getting better as you got nearer to the bottom of the punchbowl. Or maybe I was getting used to it.

Wake Up Brother came on and I raced over to Jason to hug him. "Fuck, Sook!" he yelled. "Watch my fuckin' beer, eh?" Yeah, I thought. He loves me really.

I went inside to get another glass of punch and said goodbye to Aunty Claudine and Colman who were leaving, having spent most of the time sitting by themselves. Maybe I was reading too much of my relationship with Bill into their lives, and maybe she was really happy with him. I'd never know. But I didn't really want to be her anymore, either. I was much happier being me.

Mostly, except when my stupid brother decided that tickling me was an awesome idea and I spilt some of my drink.

"Fuck off, Jason!" I yelled at him. Aunty Linda who'd been standing there laughed at us, as Jason giggled and sloped off without apologising. She handed me a napkin to dab at my shirt. "Big brothers, eh?" she said. "They're terrors every bloody time. They always think they have one over on us."

It took me a minute to click what she was talking about. "Dad?" I asked. "Dad was like that?" I only remember him as Dad, not really as Aunty Linda's annoying older brother.

"Oh, fuck yes. He was dreadful. He'd always hide my ciggies and think he was really fuckin' amusing. And when he was younger, well…" she whistled. "Let's just say Jason had nothing on him. That's why I think he never bloody let Jason get away with anything. He'd already done it and knew what a shit idea it was."

"Oh" I said. Wow, this was really interesting. I really should be talking more to my aunts, Claudine included, if I ever wanted to find out about Mum and Dad. Otherwise everyone who knew them in their youth would be gone and there'd be no one left to tell me what they were like.

And all of a sudden it was important to me that I knew what they were like.

As I was heading off to find Eric again, I saw a familiar face. "Hunter!" I said, going over to hug him. "Wow, you're so grown up!" He was, he was 18 now and going to University, the second person from our family to go. I was the first.

"Oh, hi, um…Sookie" I guessed he'd decided to drop the 'aunt' bit now he was older. I couldn't blame him, it seemed a bit redundant.

"So how's Uni?" I asked. "Your mum said you're doing architecture, she's really proud of you."

"Yeah" he said, with a slight sneer in the direction of Hadley who was dancing really close to Tony. "Yeah, it's good. I've met some great people. I wasn't here earlier, because I was out with my girlfriend's parents. She's from Glenfield. So I was over on the Shore." Hunter looked absurdly proud to have a girlfriend who was from the North Shore, and then he looked round the room and he looked terribly annoyed to be back here now, with people he probably thought were beneath him.

I kind of recognised that look. I'm pretty sure I'd sported it at times. I wondered now how I'd survived those occasions without someone slapping me for being such a stuck-up little madam.

"It's not so bad here, you know, Hunter" I said. He looked at me, startled, like I'd been reading his mind or something. "They're really OK. In a few years you'll get that, I hope anyway. They're good people, and they care about you. And your mum worked hard to get where she is."

"Oh. Right. OK." Hunter looked at his feet. "I'm um, just going to talk to Nana…" he gestured in Aunty Linda's direction.

"Yep, you do that. See you, Hunter. Study hard!"

"Yeah, will do."

I went back outside and decided I was just going to enjoy this party. It was going off. I had to help Eric with some of the sing-a-longs. He was a bit bemused as to how we all knew the words to Why Does Love Do This To Me? But I'm pretty sure they kick you out of New Zealand if you don't so it would pay him to learn.

Everyone was in good spirits. I was certainly enjoying myself. The punch tasted really good now. The music was blaring and we had a bit of a Dave Dobbyn medley going on. In fact spirits were so high that no one even really minded when Noise Control turned up at 1am to impound the stereo. I think Eric might have let them in the door, and possibly pointed out where the stereo was. But no one seemed to hold it against him. We were a very forgiving bunch.

After that the party started to wind down. It really did for me when I found myself in Aunty Linda's downstairs loo throwing up. Who the fuck puts L&P in punch, anyway, I wondered.

Eric appeared behind me and patted my back, then left me to it. Yeah, I'd leave me too. It suddenly hit me that he'd probably had a really shit time here with my rellies and would probably never, ever want to do this again.

I washed my hands, splashed my face with water and rinsed my mouth out. Then I headed out to face the music. Eric was hovering by the door holding my handbag, so we said our goodbyes to Aunty Linda and Hadley and walked to the car in silence.

The drive home was silent too, well for most of the way. As we were nearing our street I cracked. "Sorry" I whispered.

"What for?" Eric asked. "You only threw up a bit. I think there was something rotten in that punch. What the fuck is L&P, anyway?"

"Yeah, well. For that. But just for, everything. For dragging you out there and making you spend a night socialising with a bunch of low-rent weirdos from Papatoetoe. And Jason. I should have gone alone."

I faced out the window and didn't look at Eric. I braced, waiting for Eric to tell me how bad it was and how he never, ever, _ever_ wanted to see any of them again.

Instead we pulled into our driveway and Eric said "Hey" so I'd look at him. When I did he put his arm around me and pulled me over. "They're not _that_ bad, although I have to admit Aunt Linda is a little scary…"

"Oh my God!" I exclaimed, remembering something. "Did you hear Jason tell Tony she had a 'total wide-on' for you? Crystal actually punched him in the nuts. It was awesome. I cheered." Then I shut up, realising that wasn't going to help my family win any popularity contests with Eric.

Eric looked a bit stunned, and then pulled himself together. "OK. Well I'm glad someone finally punched Jason in the nuts, but that is a really disgusting term."

"I know! I'm surprised even Jason would be that crude." We were silent for a bit. "It's OK, you know" I said. "If you don't like them, you don't have to. It's just that I'm stuck with them. I tried to deny it, but it's no good. They're part of my history, and possibly part of my future."

"Sookie, its fine. It doesn't change how I feel about you. It's kind of…interesting. They're no worse than Bill's family, anyway. And no one made you cry, so maybe they're actually one up on them."

Well Bill wouldn't have agreed with him, but he was probably right.

"It was odd tonight. It felt a bit like going home, but not. I mean I'm not the same person I was when I was that girl from Papatoetoe, but at the same time I'm not the same woman who tried to pretend she'd come from somewhere else. I guess you don't really get it?"

Eric shrugged. "Not really. I mean, like I keep saying to you. I'm always me. But I kind of understand what you were trying to do. And it's OK. You don't have be anything for me that you're not. And if you want to dance around a back garden in Papatoetoe and sing fucking weird-ass songs at the top of your lungs, then that's OK with me. Just next time, can I please not wear a t-shirt with a fucking giraffe on it while you do that?"

I laughed. "Yeah, fine. We can bin the shirt."

"Yay. Can we go inside and go to bed as well now?"

"Yep, we can definitely do that too. Thank you, Eric." I leaned over and kissed him. "You're like the best American anyone in my family has ever brought home!"

Eric laughed, and then he came around and opened my door so we could go inside. It was really good to be home.

**Tiki tour - a tiki (tick-ee) is a maori carving, usually in bone or greenstone it's a stylised figure, but a tiki tour is a roundabout way of getting somewhere.**

**Mangere - Mung-ah-ree**

**Papatoetoe - Pap-a-toy-toy (or, more commonly and less correctly, Pap-a-toe-ee-toe-ee)**

**Outrageous Fortune - NZ TV show that's hugely popular. One of the links on my profile is to a promo for it. **

**Auckland Blues are the Auckland rugby team.**

**L&P is our national soft-drink (these days it's made by Coca-Cola). It stands for Lemon & Paeroa, and that's basically what it is, lemon flavoured, fizzy, mineral water from Paeroa (pronuounce Pie-row-ah). It's very sweet.**

**Karori - Car-roar-ree**

**Kia Ora - Maori for hello, pronounced Key Oar-rah**

**Kai a te ahi - Ky ah tay ar-he. Fucking bastard! fuckwit! fucking arsehole! motherfucker! - a strong curse indicating anger or hatred towards someone or something.**

**First XV - The First 15, i.e. the main rugby team for the school.**

**Palagi -Samoan word for someone of European origin. Pronounced Par-lang-ee.**

**As always, I don't speak Maori or Samoan so I've done my best to represent pronunciations and research meanings, but I do not claim that these are necessarily correct.**

**Thanks for reading!**


	6. Chapter 6

**A/N Thanks again for all the reviews! I really love getting them and finding out what everyone thinks about the story. If anyone has any questions about anything I've written, or about NZ, then just send me a message, I'm always happy to chat!**

**Disclaimer: Not mine.**

EPOV

I was glad when we'd fucking made it through that party. Sookie may not have been crying but she was definitely acting a bit strangely. Or maybe it was just that she was back in her natural habitat and this was the real her. After all, a lot of those women who looked and sounded like her seemed a bit weird too.

But it was Sookie after all, and most of the time she's not that weird, so maybe I'd let her have that one night.

As we came inside from the car Sookie was very apologetic about the t-shirt. As she probably fucking should be. It was an awful t-shirt. But wearing that t-shirt was the last in a long line of things that I'd do for Sookie that I wouldn't do for anyone else.

"I'll make it up to you. About the shirt" Sookie said suggestively as we walked through the front door. Then she hugged herself and said "Brrr! It's really cold in here. I think it's worse than outside."

"Well, bed then I think. So we can warm up" I said.

"Yep. And so I can make it up to you."

Except that after I'd finished brushing my teeth I found Sookie asleep on top of the covers. I pulled her jeans off, and she came around enough to take her own bra off through the arms of her t-shirt, and then I kind of helped her scramble under the covers. "Sorry" she mumbled before she twitched once and her breathing turned to slight snores.

The worst thing about Sookie drinking was that she was so fucking hard to wake up the next morning. The morning after her aunt's party was no different. She was determined to remain asleep no matter how much I breathed on her, or tried whispering in her ear, or even shuffled around making the bed bounce a bit. None of it worked. Sookie was still asleep and I was awake. I was bored. I was lonely. And, above all, I was really aware that we were wasting valuable alone time by just, well, lying here.

And then I had an idea. I raced out of bed to start putting my plan in action and nearly fell face first in the hallway after Bob, who'd obviously been sleeping under the bed, decided to cut me off in his rush to get to the kitchen ahead of me. I stumbled, but managed to stay mostly upright. Bob didn't care though, he just kept going. And Sookie still didn't wake up.

Five minutes later I was back in bed. I still needed Sookie to wake up though and she just was not obliging me on that point. I reached over and ran my hand over her boob. While it was fucking fantastic when she was topless, there was something about feeling her boobs through a thin layer of fabric that was really quite a turn-on.

Sookie groaned and stretched and then she said "Hasn't anyone ever told you it's not the done thing to cop a feel from drunk girls after they've passed out?"

"Nope" I said, not moving my hand. Or rather, my hand was still moving but I wasn't taking it away from Sookie's boob. "Anyway" I said, "It's completely different if they fall asleep in your bed. That's like an invitation for a good boob grab."

"OK, well that's interesting to know, I guess." Sookie rolled over. "Sorry for, um, last night..."

I stroked her face. "You don't have to keep apologising, you know."

"Yeah, but I feel bad about it. And then, to really top off the whole night I fell asleep on you."

"Well not on me, but you certainly fell asleep. And then you wouldn't fucking wake up. Do you know how boring it is lying here listening to you snore?"

"You could get up and do something, you know" Sookie said, a bit defensively. "I'm sure you've got work to do. Or there's always the vacuuming."

"It would be a total fucking waste of us having the house to ourselves for me to be vacuuming out there now, wouldn't it?"

"I guess."

"So we'll find something better to do. Now that you're finally awake." I leaned forward and sniffed her shirt. "You smell a bit smoky though."

"Yeah, that's due to bloody Aunty Linda the un-repentant chain smoker. Ugh, and I need to brush my teeth. Hang on a minute, I'll be back."

I waited until I heard the toilet flush and then I joined Sookie in the bathroom. She spat out a mouthful of toothpaste and turned to me. "Turn the shower on then, it's really freezing in here."

"Um, I put the heater on in the other bathroom. Come on" I held out my hand to her. Sookie looked a bit taken aback, but then she said "OK" and took my hand.

I led her out into the hall and to the main bathroom. Bob stuck his head around a corner and made a rather pitiful noise. Yeah, I hadn't fed the fucker in retribution for the near-accident earlier but I could see Sookie was looking in his direction and I could almost feel her desire to just run to the kitchen and feed him, but quite frankly, Bob was taking a backseat to my desires at this point in the morning so I just pulled Sookie along with me and closed the door to the bathroom behind us.

"Oooh, it's like a tropical sauna in here" Sookie said. Yeah, it was warm now the heater had been running for a while.

"Well I didn't want you to be cold" I said.

"Yeah…thank you for that."

"How are you feeling this morning, anyway?" I asked, pulling off my shirt.

"Oh, OK. I think throwing up helped a bit. That punch was pretty potent."

I nodded and then turned on the shower, which in this bathroom was just a shower-head mounted over the bathtub, and Sookie pulled off her t-shirt. Yeah, that was definitely an invitation for another boob-grab I decided. Sookie squealed, but she didn't pull away. That was promising for the next part of the plan.

We got into the shower, well into the bath. At least there were no stupid shelves for me to knock my back on in here but it was still a bit of a tight squeeze. And it took a bit of work to make sure that I didn't veer too close to the shower curtain and end up with that stuck to me.

Sookie was more than happy to let me rid of her of the remnants of the cigarette smell, so after she had washed her hair I got out the shower gel, which unfortunately was the one that smelt like melon which belonged to Amelia and not the nice one from our bathroom, and started soaping Sookie's boobs.

"You know" I said, "That dancing last night was kind of hot."

"What? Oh, my Polynesian stylings?"

"Yeah. Your hips move, um…well, it's really good to watch." I ran my hands down her sides to her hips and pulled her a bit closer to me.

Sookie laughed. "I cannot believe I did that. In front of Tony and his family. God, they must think I'm a total dweeb for that."

"Why?"

"Well. It's not really my culture is it? I hope they weren't insulted."

"Sookie, the big guys? The brothers? They didn't look insulted." I lent down to whisper to her. "They couldn't keep their fucking eyes off you."

Sookie pressed her lips together. "You're just saying that because you were watching."

"Sookie. Would I lie about that? I had to glare at all those fuckers so they'd look away."

She looked at me for a bit then she chuckled. "Well I guess it's good they did, I doubt you could have taken them all on to defend my honour."

"No, but Jason might have had my back."

Sookie shrugged. "He might have. He did used to yell at any kids he thought were being mean to me."

"Well there you are then. Turn around and I'll wash your back."

Sookie turned back to face the shower spray. I did wash her back, but my hands drifted around to her front as well. I pulled her back against me and I kissed her neck and across her shoulder. Sookie lent back against me, and sighed quietly. "Eric" she said. "Are we in here just so we can have sex in the shower?"

"Yep." I went back to kissing the spot where her neck met her shoulder.

"Um. So how long did it take you to think up this plan?"

"Well you just wouldn't fucking wake up. And I was a bit bored. And it seems a shame to waste us being alone in the house."

"Mmm-hmm. I wonder sometimes if I should worry about all the time you spend thinking about us having sex."

I didn't reply, I just let my hand drift down between her legs and started to rub her clit gently. Sookie gasped and pushed her butt back towards me, which I took as an invitation to rub my cock against it a bit.

"I think" she said, after a while, "That maybe I won't worry about it. I think I'll just let you get on with it."

"OK. That works for me too."

Sookie was starting to roll her hips against my hand and she spread her legs a bit further apart. I reached around and touched one of her boobs. Fuck, her nipples were so hard. "So how" she asked, breathlessly, "are we going to do this?"

"I've got an idea" I said. I turned the shower head so it was facing towards the wall, and then I pushed Sookie a bit further up the bath. "Put your hands against the wall" I said, and she complied, leaning forward and putting her hands to the side of the shower head. I grabbed her thigh and lifted her leg so she had one foot on the edge of the bathtub. Sookie turned and looked at me quizzically over her shoulder. "Just trust me" I said, and she didn't say anything else. At least she didn't fucking tell me she was going to have to close her eyes or anything.

I hoped this would work. I'd been trying to figure out a way to do this for a while, and lying here this morning I'd finally come up with a plan. I just hoped it was a good plan, and not, as Sookie would say, a really stink one.

I rubbed my cock through her folds and against her clit a few times and then with one hand on Sookie's hip I used the other to position myself at her entrance. Then I pushed in. There was a bit more resistance than usual, with the water running she wasn't as wet as I would have liked, but she didn't say anything. Other than a small moan.

When I was fully inside I pulled almost all the way out and then pushed back in. I had to bend my knees quite a bit, although Sookie having one leg up helped. Ideally Sookie needed to be a bit taller, or maybe I needed to be a bit shorter, but it was working. It was really fucking working for me.

Sookie moaned quietly and pushed her butt back towards me, which caused me to lose my grip on her a bit and my rhythm faltered for a moment. She was really fucking slippery. I just hoped that no one fell over during this.

I started thrusting again and moved a hand around to rub Sookie's clit. She moaned again. "Sookie" I whispered into her ear, "Sookie we're the only ones here, you can be as loud as you fucking want to be. I love it when you're loud. Go on. Say my name. Scream it."

"Eric" she said, slightly louder than her normal speaking voice.

"Louder" I said, kissing her shoulder.

"Eric! Oh fuck. Don't stop." She was a lot louder this time.

"Sookie" I said. "There's no one else here. Go on; be as loud as you want. Be as loud as I want."

Her breathing was rapid and shallow and she was so close to coming. I kept my hand moving against her clit and risked moving the other one up to touch her nipple. That pushed her over. She screamed "Eric!" and I'm not sure whether it was that sound or the feel of her orgasm pulsing around my cock, but that was it, I was coming too. I reached past Sookie to brace one hand on the wall to hold myself steady, used the other to hold her tightly round the waist, and after two or three hard thrusts I was a goner and I finished.

My knees felt weak and I stayed braced against the wall for a minute or so before I slowly pulled out and straightened up. Sookie's leg had slipped down off the edge of the bathtub and she was still leaning against the wall in front of her. I turned her around and pulled her into my arms.

"It's good being loud" Sookie said into my chest.

"Well, it would be a waste of an empty house if you weren't."

Sookie laughed, and then she looked up at me. "So was it as good as you thought it would be?" she asked.

"It was better. It always is. Although I'm not sure I could do that too often. My knees wouldn't take it."

Sookie laughed again, and then she shivered. I moved the showerhead back so the water was on us again, but it was only tepid now, and even with the heater going full-blast our damp skin was getting chilled. I shut the water off and grabbed the towels I'd put in here earlier, wrapping one around Sookie and then myself.

"That's better" she said, starting to dry herself. "But you know what I really need now?"

"What?" I asked, turning off the heater.

"Coffee. Really badly. I think you've got me addicted, because I used to be fine with the instant, but now I get grumpy if I don't get, like, the proper stuff every morning."

I laughed and followed Sookie as she made a dash for the bedroom to get dressed. "So have I got you addicted to anything else?" I asked, pulling on some jeans and a t-shirt.

"Well" Sookie said, as she pulled on about as many clothes as I expect someone leading an arctic expedition might wear. "I'm kind of addicted to having a permanent, live, hand and foot warmer. Can you pass me my cardi?"

"This one?" I asked, holding up the sweater I thought she was pointing to.

"Uh-huh." She shrugged it on and wrapped it tightly around herself.

"But nothing else?"

"Um. Let me think." Sookie adopted her best thinking pose, tapping her chin with one finger. "Ummm…ummm…maybe, um, the cuddling? Yeah, maybe that."

"Just that?" I put my arms around her and was rewarded with a pair of freezing cold hands stuffed up the back of my t-shirt to rest on my back. Fuck, they were icy.

"Oh well, the sex is pretty addictive too." She stood on tiptoe and kissed me, before patting me on the back and withdrawing her hands. "Now go and make me coffee, before I start spinning out or something."

I followed Sookie into the kitchen, reflecting that the only good thing about those fucking Ugg boots was that she tended to scuff her feet in them which gave her a really sexy wiggle when she walked. When we got there we found Bob sitting in the middle of the floor, looking pitifully at his empty bowl. "Oh Bob, baby" Sookie exclaimed, "Have you been waiting for us? I'm sorry sweetheart." She picked him up to give him a cuddle which he obviously only put up with because the person who fed him most was giving it, and then she set about getting his food out while I started the coffee.

Once Bob was simultaneously purring and crunching up cat biscuits, Sookie asked if I wanted scrambled eggs. I said yes and she got the eggs out and started breaking them into a bowl while I put some bread in the toaster. We worked mostly in silence. It was cosy, it was companionable, and it was very fucking quiet.

After a while Sookie said "I feel weird. Like something's missing."

"Yeah, I keep expecting one of them to turn up any minute and yell something" I agreed. These days Felicia was just as loud, if not louder than Amelia. I wasn't used to the house being this quiet.

"Well the weather looks OK so I guess Tara will have taken them to the zoo after all" Sookie said, peering out the window. We'd sent their zoo passes off with them, and left our carseats so Tara could take them out for the morning. I wondered now if she suspected that Sookie would be a bit hung-over this morning. After all, she was apparently from that part of Auckland too. Maybe she'd been to Aunty Linda's parties at some stage.

"Yeah" I agreed.

Sookie handed me a plate of food. "So, do you want to sit in the living room and see if we can find a movie to watch on TV, or something?"

"OK."

We sat in the living room, ate breakfast and flipped through channels. There wasn't much on. But it was nice, just sitting there and talking without the interruptions or requests for things that usually accompanied any Sunday breakfast. I really did love those kids, but I also loved it when I had Sookie all to myself.

Sookie put her plate on the coffee table and leaned over so she was lying against me with her head on my chest. She put her hands up under my t-shirt again, and I was thankful they weren't quite so fucking freezing this time around. One of her hands drifted down and was slipped just inside the waistband of my jeans, near my hipbone. The other was currently stroking my back, but it too moved down until she'd wriggled it into my jeans to rest on my butt. I was starting to think that maybe things were getting interesting and we were really going to make the most of the empty house when I realised that Sookie had become a bit of a dead weight. She'd fallen asleep on me.

SPOV

I woke up when my pillow started moving around and saying stupid things like "Sookie, wake up, the car's just pulled into the driveway."

"What?" I said, lifting my head off Eric's chest and noting that I'd left a really lovely drool spot where I'd been lying. "What's happening?"

"Tara's here."

"Oh. Yeah. OK." I was still a bit groggy but I managed to sit up long enough to let Eric stand up and go and open the door. A minute or so later Amelia and Felicia came running in and jumped all over me, followed by Tara who was talking to Eric as she walked.

"How were they?" I asked.

"Great" Tara said, at the same time that Amelia complained loudly "The tigers were asleep!"

"Hang on love" I said to Amelia, before turning back to Tara. "Thanks for taking them out this morning."

"Yeah, no worries. How was the party?"

"Oh, you know, the usual." It was, it was really only me who ever acted any differently.

"Was the punch disgusting?" Tara asked.

"Mmm. It was. Stupidly I drank some. There was L&P in it."

"Oooh" Tara scrunched up her nose. "That is nasty. God, I haven't been back to Papatoetoe in ages." She hadn't. Her parents had moved as well and now she did a really good job of pretending to be the woman from Remuera with the nice house and the part-time job who had lunch with the other mothers and volunteered for school events. In actual fact, she'd done a much better job than I had of moving away from it all. Maybe it helped that she'd taken her family, including JB, with her.

"It hasn't changed. Except maybe to get worse" I said. "There's some really cheap apartments up now by Hunter's Corner and no decent shops at all. And they still haven't cleared up the under-age prostitute problem."

"Yeah, that maybe explains it. Why I haven't been back. Right, I better go and see what my lot are up to. See you!" She kissed me on the cheek and then was off out the door.

"I'm hungry!" Amelia wailed, immediately after Tara had left. "Food! 'anana! Milk!" Felicia joined in, and I was back to being Mummy again.

After lunch it took a long time for Felicia to nap, she didn't want to sleep she wanted to jump around in the cot and it didn't matter how many times Eric went in to her she wouldn't lie down. In the end he had to sit there and hold her hand through the bars of the cot until she finally dozed off.

Meanwhile I got stuck with Amelia telling me the world's longest story. "So there was this princess, and she had a pink dress. And there was a white dress, and a red dress, and a blue dress, and a green dress…"

"Hang on" I said. "Did the one princess have all these dresses, or are these other princesses?"

"Other princesses."

"So they each had a different colour dress?"

"Yeah, but they shared them. So, anyway, what happened was that Spiderman came to the castle and he was disguised as a princess…"

"You mean a prince?"

"No. A princess. He had a dress on. But he was a bad Spiderman. And he wanted to kill them all. Dead! And so he spun this big, big web. And then he took off his princess dress and his princess shoes and his princess hair and his princess face…"

"He had a mask?" At this point Eric walked back into the room and gave me a look that I'm pretty sure meant 'don't moan about the stories if you're going to keep asking questions'. I just ignored him and waited for Amelia to answer.

"Yeah, a mask to be a princess. So anyway he took that off and then the witch put a spell on him and then he DIED!"

"Oh, OK. But were the princesses still trapped?"

"Uh-huh. And they were going to die too, but Superman came and he cut through the web with his super red scissors and then they all got out. And then they all lived happily ever after." Amelia, obviously satisfied with her story, took off to her bedroom. I looked at Eric, who was reading something on his phone. "I don't know where the super-heroes came from" I said.

"Fuck knows" Eric said, which didn't really help me much.

I was still trying to figure out what the heck was going on in Amelia's brain when the phone rang. It was Jason, he and Crystal had spent the night at Aunty Linda's and wanted to come and visit. So I spent the next half-hour racing around trying to tidy the house and muttering about relatives who wanted to visit on Sunday afternoons while Eric tried to tell me I was a nutter because it was only Jason. And his smelly gumboots.

He was right, but I didn't necessarily want Crystal to think I was slovenly.

When they turned up Jason looked a bit the worse for wear. I wonder if he'd indulged in the punch at all. He had actually let Crystal drive for one thing. "Wow" I said when they came in the door. You let Crystal drive your new ute. You must really like her."

"Well, her driving is fuckin' better than yours" Jason grumbled. "You used to fuckin' bunny-hop that bloody Honda Civic all over the place. You were shit at changing gears, eh?"

"I was not!" I said indignantly. "That car just had some problems. The engine used to flood all the bloody time."

Eric intervened at that point and ushered everyone into the living room. Some things never changed, Jason and I could still go from hello to argument in less than 30 seconds.

It wasn't too bad having them over. They'd bought some doughnuts with them, which was probably Crystal's idea, as Jason is far more likely to take stuff home with him than bring it in the first place, and she was quite good with the kids. Probably helped that it was the first time she'd heard some of Amelia's stories.

As it was fine, although cold, Amelia managed to get Uncle Jase to go out and watch her on the trampoline. I joined him outside. "Fuck" he said. "Everything's so bloody P.C. these days eh? How can you seriously bounce someone off a tramp, if there's a fuckin' net around it? Where's the fun in that?"

"Where was the fun in Hoyt breaking his arm that time, tell me that Jason?"

"He got over it, eh? He got all that attention and shit, so he didn't really mind."

When we all trooped back inside Crystal said to Jason "Maybe we should get a trampoline for the kids? For Christmas?"

Jason looked at her like she'd grown another head. "Fuck. They're far too dangerous, eh? Did I ever tell you about the time my mate Hoyt broke his arm on one? Fuckin' horrible. Nah, the kids are fine with that old mattress they've stuck over the hole down the back behind the shed. They love that, eh?"

Crystal rolled her eyes, but didn't say anything else. I would be interested to find out whether she got her way at Christmas. If she could get Jason to part with his money for anything other than a vehicle or a good time, then she was doing well.

After they left, with promises to come and see us again soon and a minor tantrum from Amelia who didn't want them to go, I got started with the roast chicken for dinner while Eric played with the kids. Well, supervised them. Sort-of. Sometimes he just lay on the floor and let them do their own thing around him. Which usually ended up with Amelia trying to find a way to barricade all the toys, hers and Felicia's, away in a corner under the guise of setting up a shop, and Felicia using Eric as her own personal trampoline.

Dinnertime was reasonably quiet, as everyone was getting a bit tired. Eric ate the chicken I'd served him kind of quickly though then said he was still hungry.

"There's more" I told him, "But I just served out what I could fit on the plate."

"Maybe we need to get bigger plates?" Eric said as he got up to find some more.

"Mum, can I have more potatoes?" Amelia asked me.

"Oh, sorry sweetheart. I served up all the ones I cooked." Amelia huffed a bit at that.

Eric walked back and sat down again. Amelia looked at his plate "Where'd you get those potatoes from?" she asked him.

"Oh. Well I had them to start with and I'd been saving…" Amelia just kept glaring at him. "Here you go, Ames." He handed a couple over. Poor Eric. It was bad enough that Felicia stole his food, now he had two of them doing it. He'd learn not to save potatoes though, I used to do that and Jason would just nick them straight off my plate.

I got quite sneaky at stabbing him with my fork after a while, and that stopped him.

After dinner I wrapped up what was left of the chicken, which was not as much as I had been hoping for, and thought about the party the night before. It was weird, I kind of felt OK there, I kind of felt like I belonged, but it wasn't home. Not anymore. Not without my parents.

I went into the living room to check everyone was OK. The two tired small people and one tired big person were sitting on the couch nursing drinks; Eric had coffee, Felicia had her bottle of milk, and Amelia had some Milo, which she really didn't enjoy all that much, but she was determined not to be left out.

Really, I thought, these were my people now. I guess I had to accept that some of what had linked me to my extended family, and even to my brother, was Mum and Dad and they were long gone. So I could go and have a nice time and make small-talk, but it was always going to be just a fleeting visit kind of thing. I wasn't suddenly going to be best friends with Hadley or any of that.

But that was OK. I had my own home and my own family. Which is what I'd always wanted. Probably too much for my own good. I'd been so desperate to belong with someone that I'd stayed with Bill much longer than I should have because the other option, the one where I was alone in the world and had no-one, was just too scary to contemplate. I somehow didn't have the strength to just put myself out there and hope to God it all worked out in the end and I'd find the right person. So I clung on to what I did have. Until I lost it anyway.

I walked back into the kitchen to find Bob waiting by his bowl. I gave him some of the leftover chicken and was rewarded with a purr.

The amazing thing, I thought to myself, was that Eric managed to end up here at all. He'd been exactly the right person to fill the empty slot in the family I hadn't even realised we'd had. At the time I'd just been trying to work out how to get myself and my daughters through all the shit that Bill had left us. I wasn't exactly looking for another guy.

And yet he still turned up anyway. I looked at Bob, who looked at his empty bowl, then back at me, and I gave him some more chicken. I wondered if maybe Eric was like a cat, they can always find the cat-people of the world. My Gran had had a cat that had just moved in from next door, and by the time that cat was spending her days on Gran's porch, and sleeping on her bed at night, the neighbours had just admitted defeat and told Gran she was hers to keep.

Somehow Eric had managed to find out where all the Eric-people of the world were hanging out and move there. Which is quite a feat when you think about it.

We managed to get the kids into bed without them falling asleep and then I joined Eric on the couch, leaning my back against his chest. Bob jumped up too and after a bit of persuasion, allowed me to put my sock-covered feet under his stomach. Eric just tsked and said "That cat will do anything if you let him fucking have some of the chicken."

I just shrugged. It was probably cupboard-love, but I wasn't going to complain. I just hoped Eric wasn't only here for the food that was on offer. Later on in bed though he did let me put my feet between his legs to warm up, so he's no better than Bob really. They're both suckers for me sometimes.

We were lying facing each other, and I was enjoying just running my hand over Eric's cheek and pushing his hair off his face. He has such a nice face. He turned his head slightly and kissed my palm. "You OK?" he asked.

"Yeah. Why wouldn't I be?"

"Well the party last night. You were a bit…um, manic."

"Yeah. I needed to let off a bit of steam, or something. I don't know. My rellies like to party." I was silent for a moment. "What about yours?" I asked. "Did you have many family parties?"

Eric sighed and rolled onto his back. I put my chin on his chest and just waited to see what he'd come up with. Either he'd shut me down totally or I might find something out, you never entirely knew which way it was going to go when you asked him a question about his past.

"Not really" he said. "There weren't any parties with family that I remember."

"Oh." I wondered if that was all I was going to get.

"There were…parties. God knows, Dad liked to drink. Too fucking much. Mom…I can't really remember. I just remember…" he paused again, and I waited. "Lipstick. I remember the lipstick."

"Lipstick?"

"Yeah. Red lipstick. On everything, glasses, napkins, Dad's shirts, me if she kissed me. That's what I remember about them having a party. The lipstick that was everywhere afterwards." Eric went very quiet but didn't add anything else. To brighten the mood a bit I said "Sounds so much more classy than Jason's Midori-tinted spew being everywhere."

Eric laughed and pulled me close to him. "There is one thing I was curious about, after last night" he said.

"Yeah? What?" God, I thought, please don't ask me to explain anything about why Aunt Linda kept trying to flirt with him, or why my nearly-40 year old, mother of three cousin Hadley still dresses like she's 19.

But what Eric said was "Last night when we got home…hang on, you do remember getting home, don't you?"

"Of course I do!" I said indignantly. I did, mostly. Still a bit fuzzy on how I ended up in bed and where my bra went in the process.

"Well you said that I was the nicest American anyone in your family had ever brought home, so who was the other one? Or ones?"

"Oh. Yeah." Of all the things he could have asked he picked that. It was OK, albeit a weird thing to focus on. "I think I was just being silly, I think you're it."

"Oh."

"Um…yeah, just you. Oh no, hang on!" I suddenly thought of something. "Remember what I said about the hospital I was born in, that it was for US soldiers? Well I think Gran met one, because I remember her saying something about him coming for tea. But he obviously wasn't as nice as you because she still married Granddad, so yeah. You win."

"I do?" Eric seemed really pleased to win a contest that wasn't even a real contest and in which he was possibly the only participant.

"Yeah, you do. Judges' decision is final and no correspondence will be entered into, blah, blah, blah and all of that."

"What's my prize?"

"Jeez, there's prizes now?"

"There can't be a contest if there's no prizes."

"Um, well, what do you want?"

"You."

With that Eric flipped us over so I was on my back and I let him claim his prize. It seemed only fair.

**PC - stands for Politically Correct, i.e. the stuff that stops you having these days. **

**Milo - it's marketed as an 'energy' drink for kids, which means that although it's flavoured with cocoa it also has malted barley and a few other things in it, so it doesn't have a straightforward cocoa taste. It comes as a powder so although it's often drunk hot, you can just mix it with milk and drink it cold. **

**Thanks for reading!**


	7. Chapter 7

**A/N There's not too much more left of this one, probably one more chapter after this one. So then I'll do the civil union as a separate story I think, so we can have another time-jump.**

**Disclaimer: Nup, none of them are actually Kiwis. I'm just pretending. **

SPOV

I piled up all the work stuff I had spread on the dining room table and put it into my little file box, then I headed into the study to find a spot for it. Eric was in there working on his laptop, trying to make the most of the house being nice and quiet with the kids asleep and there being no Felicia trying to climb into his lap and poke the laptop keyboard. It was actually quite entertaining to watch her scramble up, it didn't seem to bother her that Eric gave her no encouragement; she just hauled herself up anyway, and didn't seem to mind if it took her two or three attempts. She was a determined little thing.

I stood in the doorway to the study, which was also the spare room and storage facility for the house. And currently, it was Eric's only work-space.

"Eric, you've got an awful lot of shit in here, you know." I peered at the small book-case, trying to work out if I could fit my box on there anywhere. It didn't look likely.

"Mmm. I need it for work." He didn't look at me, or stop typing.

"I didn't say you didn't need it. I just said there was an awful lot of it. That's completely different. But do you think I could maybe, just maybe, get some space on the bookcase for some of my stuff?" I looked at Eric and he stopped typing and looked at me. "Um" he said. "Well, maybe. But I don't think there's much space left."

I looked at the bookcase again, trying to work out how I could re-organise it. Eric went back to what he was doing, probably hoping I'd give up and go away. In the end I put the file box on the top and hoped it didn't fall off. Eric glanced at what I was doing but didn't say anything.

As I turned around I noticed that the spare bed was covered in piles of paper as well. "Eric, what's with all the piles?" I asked.

"Filing."

"Your filing system consists of making piles of paper all over the bed?"

"My filing system consists of collating useful information in a way that's easily accessible" Eric said, still looking at his screen and not at me.

"By putting the information in little piles all over the bed?" I knew I was poking the bear, but it was fun. Well, it was either this or go and tackle the ironing and I really hate ironing.

Eric sighed. "Yes" he said, and went back to what he was doing. Well that was no fun.

"So are they really important piles then?"

"Yep. Really important. Please do not touch them. Felicia's already knocked some off once."

"Sooo, if I was to, I don't know, take one piece of paper out from the bottom of each pile and change it with something from another pile, the world as we know it might end?"

"Yes."

I decided to look more closely at the piles. "Eric" I said. "I don't think you have to print out _every_ email people send you. There's such a thing as a paperless office."

"Mmm."

"Sooo, no point suggesting we just push the piles aside and have sex in here then?"

That at least made Eric look at me, but then he looked at the piles of paper on the bed and looked sad. "No, it would take too long to get it all organised again. Fuck, after Felicia decided to re-organise it all for me I had a fucking awful time trying to recreate it all. And to top it off I had to fend off Amelia who was on the hunt for scrap paper to draw on and wouldn't believe me that just because it was on the floor it wasn't trash."

"But it does take up a lot of space" I said. "And, um, it might be nice if I had some space for some of my work stuff. There's all those worksheets that I hand out that are just sitting in the garage at the moment."

"There's space in here still" Eric said, kind of indignantly.

I looked around. Well, there was floor space, but I didn't really count that as filing space. Eric obviously did though, judging from the fact some of the piles of paper were spreading along the wall beside the desk.

"There's not really" I grumbled. "I did think that maybe I'd get to share the space in here."

"We can share. I just need…a certain amount of space." I guessed that was Eric's code for he was here first and he wasn't moving. Bob does the same thing if I try to move him off the couch, only in his case he growls slightly when I lift him up.

"But so do I" I countered. "I could do with a lot more space than I have now. How come I can't have some of the space in here? Why do you get it all? What makes your stuff more important than mine?"

Eric looked thoughtful; he was obviously trying to work out the best argument for that. I could see that what he really wanted was for me to leave him alone so he could have a really good think about it and then come back to me in a couple of days with something absolutely water-tight and hard to argue against.

Instead what I did was perch on the edge of the bed, which caused some of the piles to shift slightly and made Eric wince. He still didn't say anything; I guessed he was trying to think of a better way to say 'because I make more money than you.' If he said that I was calling immigration, I really was.

"Well?" I prompted.

"Well. I have to provide a…certain level of care to my clients…"

I cut him off. "So you're saying none of the mums who come to my classes are going to care if I don't put the equipment together correctly and their toddlers fall on their heads?"

"No. But I think that illustrates the difference. Your client care is more, um, immediate. If something goes wrong, it happens there and then. I, on the other hand, have to make sure that anything I do stands up to scrutiny at any time in the future. So I'm stuck with keeping a record of everything that's happened, which of course includes correspondence. If I don't then anyone I work with can come back and accuse me of feeding them a line of bullshit. So, that requires a certain amount of filing space." Eric looked pleased with the argument he'd come up with and, to be honest, it did kind of make sense.

"But does it have to be…um, everywhere?" I asked, looking around the room. "Couldn't you put some of it somewhere else?"

"Don't worry; I'm working on something else."

"Oh, you are?"

"Yup." Eric turned back to his laptop, but only to start powering it down.

I stood up. "Well OK then, but I don't know where you're going to fit a filing cabinet in here, unless you lose the bed. Which could mean we don't have to put Jason up next time he visits, but on the other hand it's handy to have."

"It's not a filing cabinet."

"Oh." I waited for Eric to elaborate, but a person could get very, very old sometimes waiting for Eric to elaborate on stuff. Instead he shut everything down and started to leave the room. "So the sex is still on offer, is it?" he asked.

"I guess so. I still think it might have been more interesting on top of your amazingly complicated filing system, though."

Eric just smiled at me, but he didn't agree. We reached our bedroom and I realised that the bed was still covered with piles of clothes that I'd folded, but hadn't got around to actually putting in drawers. I scrambled around trying to grab some of it, while Eric just plonked himself down on the top, knocking all the piles over.

"Hey! Watch out for them!" I said. "That's not helpful at all."

"Sorry, am I messing up your filing system for clean laundry?"

I looked at Eric. "You could help, you know?"

"Mmm, I could, but I thought we had the underpants fairy specifically for that reason?"

"Yeah, if only. She's obviously having a ditzy moment because she forgot to put this stuff away." I was trying to grab stuff to put in the drawers and Eric was trying to grab me, which just made more clothes fall to the floor. "You know" I said, grumpily. "I didn't actually mess up any of your filing; I just said that there was a lot of it."

"Yeah, I know. But this is laundry. And it's all over the bed. And you promised me sex, so you know, its fair game."

"Oh, whatever!" I said, chucking the knickers I was holding up in the air and jumping on the bed next to Eric. He pulled me on top of him for a kiss. "You're helping to put all this away though" I told him, when I came up for air.

"Mmmm" Eric said, which was sufficiently non-committal so that I would never be able to hold him to anything. And then I decided to just hold him to a few orgasms instead and work from there. Laundry folding would be a bonus.

EPOV

Sookie was getting increasingly disgruntled about the amount of work stuff I had in what she insisted on euphemistically calling the 'study'. It was really not a study. It was a small multi-purpose room which we all, apparently, had to share.

I really didn't want to share my work-space. Not even with Sookie. I loved her a lot, but she liked to chat to me when I was working, which wasn't really helpful. It was bad enough when I had Amelia, Felicia and sometimes even Bob in there with me but add Sookie to the mix and it all went to shit. She'd sit on the bed, threaten to destabilise the piles of filing I had and talk about nothing in particular. Update me on Judith's pregnancy, or tell me where Andy and Halleigh were going on vacation. It really wasn't conducive to getting anything done. She was distracting.

Mostly because she smelt really good and I'd start to think about other things I could be doing with her.

Working from home also meant, apparently, that I was 'available' during the day for stuff like picking up the girls from daycare. Normally this was fine. The day that Felicia had bitten another little boy it was quite a bit less than fine, but it seems she'd done it in retaliation for being pushed over in the sandpit, so it was kind of hard to blame her. But it did mean an extra half-hour talking to the teachers while they went over their fucking plans to manage her behaviour in the future and while I assured them she really wouldn't do it again.

I really hoped she wouldn't do it again. Sookie was horrified that we apparently had a biter. I didn't realise that they were the notorious kids at daycare, the ones that no one else would let their kids near. I tried to re-assure Sookie as well that it was just a one-off and no one actually got eaten so it was probably OK, but she looked like she wanted to cry.

Felicia wasn't yet two so I really didn't think she should be written off as juvenile delinquent just yet. No matter what defective genes she might have inherited from Bill. I volunteered to have a talk with her.

"Leesh" I said. "We don't bite people, OK?"

"Wha'?"

"No biting. You bit someone. Don't do it."

"Wha"?"

"No biting."

"OK. Sockie needs milk. I want milk."

"Not before dinner."

"Milk!"

"No."

Felicia looked at me and stamped her foot. Fuck, I thought, she's learnt that move now. "MILK!"

"No."

Then her lip wobbled. She'd figured that one out too. "Milk?" she asked in a trembling voice.

"No."

All of a sudden the tears stopped and she gave me a 'you suck' look and stomped off. "Mummy! Mummy!" I could hear her calling. She'd obviously decided to find the person more sympathetic to her pleading.

All of this drama had meant I'd had longer away from my desk than I really wanted. While it was sometimes fun to be there for the kids, sometimes I just needed a bit of peace and quiet. But just as I sat back down at the fucking tiny desk I was stuck with, Amelia appeared.

"Did Felicia really bite someone?" she asked, looking for gossip.

"Apparently. Who really knows apart from a kid who can't talk properly yet."

"Who'd she bite?"

"They won't tell us."

"Why not?"

"Policy."

"Tyler used to bite me, but now he doesn't bite. He still runs around in circles and yells though, which is really dumb. Boys are dumb. And Mum says they don't have good cakes because Cooper, he said my skirt wasn't pretty. But it is, isn't it Eric? …Isn't it Eric?"

"Yes."

"Um, can I use the laptop?"

"No."

Amelia sighed. "Why not?"

"I'm busy. Hang on, boys don't have good cakes?"

"Yeah, that's what Mum said. So can I use the laptop?"

"I said no. Now go and find something else to do."

"MUM! Mum, Eric said I …" Amelia's voice disappeared as she ran off into the distance.

A few minutes later Sookie appeared. "What was Amelia's problem?" she asked me.

"I wouldn't let her use the laptop."

"Oh. I got told that you told her to go away."

"Sookie, really? Would I do that?"

"Well no, I guess not. But she's pretty adamant. She's a very convincing actress unfortunately."

"Yeah…hey, what's with the good cakes?" I realised I shouldn't ask, not if I really wanted to get anything done, but I was fucking curious.

"Cakes? There aren't any cakes. Jesus, I'm shattered, I've got no time to bake anything. At this rate it's going to be pizza for dinner."

"No, I don't think its actual cakes. Amelia said something about boys not having good cakes? Something to do with her dress?"

Sookie looked thoughtful. Then she clicked her fingers. "Taste. I said boys don't have good taste sometimes. She was a bit upset about the skirt thing. I shouldn't think that four year old boys really care about her wardrobe, but she cares."

"Oh. But I have good taste, don't I?"

"Yeah, you do. But anyway, you keep telling me you're not a boy, so you were never included in that statement."

"Good defence."

"OK, so you can order the pizza? Because I can hear them fighting and if I'm actually scared that Felicia might bite Amelia now. Shit, I hope she's not a serial biter. Amelia used to have one in her class. Tyler I think. That kid was a bit mental."

"He still is according to Amelia."

"Well there you go then. The biters of this world are looked down upon. They're the kids eating sand in the corner who can't deal with their emotions. If I've given birth to one I don't know what I'll do." She stood there, biting her lip. "We had a biting incident at Jumping Beans last week, under the fun-chute, and the looks the mother of that kid got. Jesus, I'll be surprised if she ever comes back, and if she does, well I doubt any of them will talk to her. It's horrible if that's your kid."

"It'll be OK. I think it was self-defence anyway." I held out my arms and Sookie stepped into them so I could hold her. "It'll be OK" I said. "I think she understands. And hopefully no one else will provoke her."

"You make her sound like a badly-trained pit-bull or something."

Just then the sound of Amelia yelling "Felicia! NO!" drifted through from the family room and Sookie took off, but not before saying "Don't forget the pizza."

I grabbed my phone and placed the usual order with Hell pizza. I think they kind of knew us there now. Despite what Sookie thinks, tipping does actually provide an incentive for prompt delivery.

After I'd done that I looked at the clock on the laptop. Fuck, I'd lost a fuck-load of time this afternoon. It was all too easy to get distracted around here and I had a new client who I needed to be ready to present something to in the next couple of days. And it wasn't like I could exactly delegate any of the work to anyone else. While I really appreciated being away from office politics and the assholes like Victor and Clancy who made larger companies fucking awful to be a part of, there was something to be said for having staff. Sookie helped a bit, when she could, but I felt a bit, well, bad about dumping too much on her. And she was distracting anyway, as it was far more fun to think of all the things I could be getting her to do in bed.

Fuck, I thought, I really need an office.

I managed to get a bit done before the pizza arrived, but I should have paid more attention because I wasn't there to actually open the door for the delivery guy. First thing I knew about it was Sookie stomping into the room and saying "Eric, there's a spotty uni student standing on the doorstep who won't hand over the pizza. He keeps asking if my husband's here. Have you been tipping them?"

Yep, far, far too fucking easy to get distracted around here.

"Um, maybe just once, or twice. I'll go and talk to the guy."

Sookie glared while I left the room. I hoped like fuck everything worked out with the office I'd been looking to lease. I really needed to get out of home. Just so I could get some work done. And maybe just for sake of my own sanity.

**Thanks for reading!**


	8. Chapter 8

**A/N So this is it for this story, it was only ever meant to be a short one. Thanks for all the love you guys have been showing it! I get such a kick out of having people read this and enjoy it! But next I'll write about the Civil Union so there's more. There's always more. Sookie and Eric just love to talk to each other!**

**Disclaimer: Not mine.**

EPOV

"So you're going today, aren't you?" Sookie asked over breakfast.

"Um, yeah. But I think it's a bit rich that you're kicking me out now. I just got used to being here."

Sookie snorted and picked up the toast Felicia had thrown on the floor. "Yeah, 'cos I could so kick you out now. I'd have to move or something so you couldn't find me."

"I'd find you."

"Yeah, you probably would. You found me the first time."

"Exactly. So there'd be no point."

"Mmm. But today is the day you get the keys? And, um, take the filing over there?"

I looked at Sookie who was trying really hard to make it sound like a casual inquiry, but it was so fucking obvious that she was very, very excited to get her spare room back.

I wasn't too sad to be taking the filing with me. There'd been a nasty incident the week before when I'd forgotten to shut the door to the spare room and Bob had decided to use it as a torture chamber for his latest captive. Which was a bird. Who could still fly despite the fact it was bleeding profusely. When I found the pair of them there was paper scattered everywhere, some of it bloodstained, and Bob was balanced precariously on the bookcase staring longingly at his injured victim who was on top of the curtains. It was a fucking mess. And I told Bob exactly what I thought of him, quite loudly.

Sookie didn't speak to me for about three hours after that and only relented when I was the one who tracked the weird banging noise down to discover that Amelia had shut Felicia in our wardrobe. Well, Amelia admitted shutting the door, but denied knowing Felicia was in there. The fact that Felicia was found clutching one of the cookies from the container I knew she couldn't reach by herself told an entirely different story. The upshot was that during the five minutes of glory I got for being the vaguely attentive parent and not the one cleaning the bathroom and ignoring the rest of her family while in a total fucking mood, meant that the ice was broken and Sookie was back talking to me.

I however was stuck fucking trying to get all my work back into some semblance of order. It was not something I wanted to do again and I was glad that it was going to be moving somewhere else. I hadn't even let Sookie help me pack it all into boxes in order to take it to the new office. She'd told me I was being ridiculous and what could possibly go wrong with just re-piling the piles in a box. But I wasn't taking anymore fucking chances.

So today was the day I actually officially started working out of my new office. It was one of a group of tiny offices built in some old houses near the Mt Eden village. It was fucking tiny, but it would do. At least there were unlikely to be roaming cats or small children who were hell bent on destroying everything I needed.

"Yeah, today it is. The furniture I bought is getting delivered this morning. So what are you guys up to?"

"Well, I've got Amelia's dance lesson this morning. Which means driving to Ellerslie and spending 45 minutes watching a bunch of four year olds dance around pretending to be fairies and hunt bears while trying to stop Felicia from joining in. She never understands that she can't be part of it. And then…I don't know. Maybe Pak N Save? Haven't decided."

"Oh, OK then." Just the same as any other Monday then, except I wasn't here to be the built-in babysitter I usually was when the kids weren't at daycare. Even on the days Sookie wasn't running classes, like today, I still somehow ended up as chief child-minder. It didn't really worry me, not most of the time. But in some ways it would be nice to just be able to sit and work without any distractions. I'd kind of missed that.

Half an hour later I was ready to head out. I had the car filled up with boxes of stuff and my laptop and all I needed was the furniture delivery to arrive as well. They were only an hour later than they said they would be, which doesn't seem too bad, but it a long time to sit in a completely empty office surrounded by boxes and trying to work on a laptop while sitting on the floor. I didn't therefore feel too bad about not tipping them, but I'm pretty sure the guys didn't notice that I didn't . They were still pretty cheerful when they drove off on their truck.

This was a fucking weird country sometimes.

So I spent the morning trying to work out the best way to arrange the furniture in the really tiny space I had to work with. I had a desk, a bookcase, a couple of filing cabinets and two chairs. And that was about all I could fit in there.

So furniture placement was going to be important if I didn't want to end up walking into the corner of the desk every five fucking minutes. I'd done that a few times before I figured out it was better if the desk was further to one side of the room than the other.

It was a busy morning, and I hadn't even had a chance to notice how fucking quiet it was when Sookie showed up at the door.

SPOV

I survived another dancing class. I'd started taking Amelia to 'pre-dance' classes earlier in the year and she loved them, they spoke to the part of her that just wanted to be the centre of attention all the time. I just sat on the sidelines and tried not to wince every time I could hear Amelia's little voice telling the teacher one of her interesting stories. To her credit, the teacher Maria-Starr was very, very good with all the little girls, all of whom insisted on wearing their best fairy dresses, or ballet costumes or, in some cases, ladybird costumes. It looked like hard work.

And I dealt with toddlers for four hours at a time, three days a week.

So this Monday we'd trooped along with the requisite piece of new artwork for Maria-Starr, lovingly created by Amelia in order to finally make her the top teacher's pet. She was most annoyed when it got lined up with all the other offerings on Maria-Starr's desk.

Felicia was just annoyed to be sitting on the sidelines. While she so far appeared to have much less desire to be a fairy than Amelia did, she had noticed that the fairies ran around. And running around was one of her most favourite things to do in the whole world. Running around while squealing was her absolute most favourite thing, and that wasn't really appreciated by the fairies either.

Felicia had a bit of a reputation in this class. And that was without having bitten anyone.

It had been nice when I could leave her at home with Eric. Who did the decent thing and ignored the running around and squealing while he was trying to get some work done. But this week she had to come with me and be bribed to sit still with a pile of toys and some crackers, none of which worked for long.

I was exhausted at the end of the forty-five minutes, but neither of the kids were.

Still, it wasn't going to be my problem for much longer, our next stop was Judith's place where I was dropping off my monsters and making a run for it. I felt a bit bad, after all Judith was pregnant and dealing with three little girls who were all mobile and who didn't always get on was going to be a bit of a challenge, but I had confidence in her. She was a daycare teacher after all.

And, more to the point, she'd survived life in the Compton household with three older sisters. If anyone knew how to manage a bunch of bickering girls it should be her. And if she couldn't, I just hoped she had the decency not to tell me.

After dropping them off along with a change of clothes for each of them, Amelia's 'project' box (one of the file boxes she'd stolen from me which now held paper, he felt tips, sellotape, pipe cleaners, old magazines, tiny pink scissors, old Christmas ribbon and a gluestick), Sockie, and Felicia's favourite book, I was free to head home and get ready to go and surprise Eric. I just hoped it was a nice surprise.

He looked a bit startled when I arrived. The office looked well…I guess it was getting there. There was furniture, which was a start. The last time I'd seen it, really briefly because neither of the kids particularly cared about it and didn't want to hang about, it had just been an empty room. Now it had stuff everywhere, as the boxes that Eric had packed up with his 'filing' had all exploded. It didn't look like a lot had actually made it into the filing cabinets yet.

"Oh" he said. "Oh, I, um…where are the kids?"

"Judith's got them. I'm considering leaving them there, permanently. She keeps saying she wants a big family, so this could be her test. Honestly, dancing was a nightmare then all the way back from Ellerslie Amelia decided to tell Felicia that she was a naughty baby for trying to join in. Felicia just yelled back. I'm surprised we actually made it to Judith's and that I didn't just abandon the car on the side of the motorway. CYFS would have tracked me down though. Amelia knows too much about me now. Maybe I need to change everything so it's under your name? Although she could probably give them your full name too."

Eric just stared at me; I guessed maybe that was a bit too much information. He'd leased this office to get away from the home dramas, and here I was sucking him back him.

Still, it didn't seem fair only one of us got to escape. That was the point of having another parent, surely? Someone else to share the pain with you and agree that as much as you loved them, sometimes it was hard not to just pretend they'd accidentally wandered over from next door. And that you had absolutely nothing to do with anything they were currently doing, but surely their parents should be slightly ashamed of themselves.

"Um" he said. "You're all dressed up?"

Thank God he'd noticed, I thought. It had been a long time since he'd seen me in my work clothes, running Jumping Beans I just wore a polo shirt and yoga pants, which was comfy and practical, but it wasn't very sexy. Today I'd dug out my pencil skirt, my good white workshirt, my nice black cardi and my really high heels.

"Yeah, I am" I said. "I brought lunch" I held up the bag to show him.

Eric frowned a bit at the change in topic, but then brightened when his brain caught up that there was food. "Oh, great" he said.

"And, you know, I thought I could help…" I put the bag of food and my handbag down in a corner, where I hoped it wouldn't disturb the filing too much.

"Help?"

"Yeah, help." I stepped closer to Eric.

"Oh, well it's probably better if I just work on the filing myself, so I know where everything is. Although maybe you could make the labels. Not sure where the label maker went though. I thought I brought it, but Amelia's been after it for a while so it might still be at home, did you see it when you were there?"

Wow, I realised Eric was really distracted today, because he was not getting what I was angling at. I resisted the urge to yell 'for fuck's sake Eric, forget the label maker!' and instead I took another step closer, so that I could run a hand up his arm.

"You know…_help_. Like maybe..." I said, running my hand across his chest, "I could, um, plug something in for you?" If he didn't get this I was just going to eat my lunch and go home, I really was. I'd had been talking myself into doing this for days and I had really hoped he would figure it out. He was always so good at the sex stuff.

Eric looked down at my hand. "Ohhh" he said, realisation dawning, finally. "Ohhh. Well, hang on." Eric crawled under the desk and pulled a plug out of the wall. "There you go, the laptop needs plugging in now" he said with a grin.

"Gee thanks, Eric. I didn't actually have to plug anything in for real you know."

"I thought it added to the atmosphere. _Now_ I get the whole dressed up for work look you're sporting there."

"Finally! Thank you." I looked him up and down. "Of course the fact you're just in your scruffy old t-shirt and jeans kind of spoils it. I like the suits better."

Eric shrugged. "I was mainly moving furniture today, and bits of paper. I didn't think I had to dress up. You could have brought my suit."

"Meh, too much effort. OK, well close the blinds then."

Eric closed the blinds of the one window which opened onto the walkway outside and then sat down on his chair. "OK, well, off you go then" he said happily.

I frowned. "No, I think it's better if you just find me already under there…maybe, don't you?"

Eric shrugged. "I don't really fucking care, Sookie. But it's fine, it's your show."

Eric stood up again and moved to the side of the room and I got down on my hands and knees and started to regret not bringing the vacuum with me. Of course Eric hadn't thought that a good use of his time this morning would be cleaning up before the furniture went in.

I shuffled under the desk and wiggled my backside a bit, while actually plugging in his stupid laptop power cord. Eric laughed. "I remember that view" he said. "It's fucking fantastic."

"Yeah, thanks I think" I said, but it came out a bit muffled from under the desk.

There was a pause then Eric said "Now what?"

"Come over here."

Eric walked over and I shuffled out a bit and looked up him. "Watch your head this time" he said.

"Thanks."

"Well, you know. I've seen you do this before. It makes me fucking wince when you bang it."

"Yeah, fine. I'm clumsy. Moving on, Eric….Hello."

"Um, hello?"

"OK. This feels dumb. Sit down." Eric did as I told him and I had a think about what to do next. I climbed into his lap, perching my knees on his thighs and hitching up my skirt in the process and put my arms around his neck. "Hello" I tried again.

"Hello. Now see if you'd just done this the first time I would have come home with you there and then."

"Or followed me home."

"Or followed you home. At any rate I would have been pretty happy with the warm welcome I was getting from the Kiwis."

"Yeah, I'm just the best ambassador for my country, ever!"

"Yup, you are." Eric leaned in and kissed me and I just enjoyed the feel of his lips on mine and his tongue exploring my mouth. It still got me all hot and bothered. Every time. I slipped my cardigan off my shoulders and tossed it on the desk.

Eric's hands ran up the backs of my thighs and under my skirt. It wasn't all that warm so I was wearing those silly thigh-high stocking things that normally don't stay up properly unless the elastic makes your thighs look like sausages that someone tied a string around. But Eric was intrigued when he found them during his exploration and pushed my skirt up further to have a better look. He ran his finger along the top of one of the elastic bits and then the other. "They're, um, really good…" he said huskily.

"Uh-huh" I agreed. They probably looked really crap, but who cared when he was touching me. Like that.

I reached down and started to unbutton Eric's jeans, while he ran his hands along the skin between my knickers and my stockings. When I had most of the buttons undone, I backed off Eric's lap, although he tried to hold me there, and positioned myself kneeling on the floor between his legs. Should have bought a cushion I thought. And then I decided I'd better concentrate on my task.

I got the rest of the fly on Eric's jeans undone and then grabbed the waistband which was Eric's cue to lift his backside off the seat. Somehow he normally figures that one out pretty quickly.

I kissed each of his thighs and then shuffled a bit further forward to lick his penis from base to tip, which made him groan. I really liked the groaning.

After a few more slow licks, and a few more grateful groans, I took him in my mouth and started to slowly move my tongue around and around, before moving up and down in earnest. "Fuck, Sookie. That's so…fuck…" Eric whispered above me. Yeah, he can be quiet when he wants to be.

It didn't take long before I could feel Eric's hips shifting slightly and then starting to come slightly off the chair to meet me each time. I increased the suction and started to use my hand at the base. "Oh…fuck!" Eric said, louder this time, just as he came. I kept my mouth in place for a few seconds before I released him and stood up to lean against the desk in front of him.

Eric looked a bit dazed, and then ran his hand over his face and sort of came around. He stood up and pulled his underwear and jeans back up, leaning over to kiss me at the same time. "Fuck" he said. "That was fucking awesome. And you didn't even run away." I laughed. "But now I'm never going to get any work done in here because I'm only going to be able to think about you. Doing that. Again and again."

I laughed some more. "Yeah, well. You can't say I didn't help you christen your office!"

Eric looked around. "Well we haven't christened all of it…yet…"

"Mmm, but maybe after lunch." I retrieved the bag with the food in it and put it on the desk. Eric peered inside and took out a paper bag. "Subs?" he asked.

"No! It's a filled roll."

"It's a fucking sub, clear as day. I don't know why you have to have a separate name for them."

"It's not a separate name, it's what they are! In New Zealand, it's a filled roll. And if you don't admit that, I'm not giving you the potato-top pie I bought you as well."

Eric looked a bit torn. He loved his potato-top pies. "Fine" he said quietly, "It's a filled roll, then."

"Thank you."

"And then after lunch" Eric said, taking a bite out of his filled roll. Well he was eating the first one he'd found, I hoped it was his. "Maybe we can try christening another bit of the office?"

"I thought you said thinking of having sex in here was going to distract you?"

"Mmm, but I'll be thinking of the blow-job now anyway, so we might as well give me a few other things to think about as well. So I don't get too bored."

I located the filled roll that was actually mine and took a bite. "So what did you have in mind?"

Eric looked around and then looked thoughtful. "I'll think of something. But maybe I need to get a couch in here as well?"

"Nah, you'd never fit a couch. And anyway, you'd just put piles of paper on it anyway."

Eric shrugged and didn't say anything. Which was always a clear indication I was right and he didn't want to admit it.

"Anyway, happy getting an office day, Eric" I said. "We'll miss you at home."

"Yeah" Eric looked a bit sad. "But I'll still work from home sometimes."

"Good, because I never got to Pak N Save, so I need you to do the pick-up tomorrow, so I can go then."

"Yeah, no problem. Where's the pie?" Eric said looking in the bag. "Oh, I've found it." He took it out, and then he looked at me. "You are going to bring me lunch everyday, aren't you?"

"Nup, you're on your own now."

"Fuck, I knew you were kicking me out."

I laughed. "If only. You'd just come back. Did I ever tell you about the cat Gran tried to give back to its owner that just came back to her every time?"

"Sookie, why are all of your stories about cats? Or Jason?"

"Dunno. But that was who was around when I was a kid. Did I tell you about the time our cat jumped in the window late at night and landed on Jason and woke him up and Mum and Dad thought someone was breaking in because he screamed so much? Like a girl!"

Eric laughed, then leaned over and kissed me. "I will miss the chats. When I'm here."

"I could just email the stories to you. Although on second thoughts you'd just print them out so that's a waste of a tree."

We both laughed at that, and then finished our lunches. After that Eric decided we really hadn't used the chair to its full advantage yet and came up with some very good uses for it. Eric having his own office, far away from interruptions, was turning out to be a very good thing, for both of us.

Except maybe he wasn't getting as much work done as he'd thought he would.

**CYFS is Child, Youth and Family Services, i.e. Child Welfare.**

**Thanks for reading!**


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